Middle school students in Robertson and Dickson counties will get hands-on science instruction thanks to a 杏吧原创 outreach initiative.
Science teachers for grades 6-8 at White House Heritage Elementary School and Coopertown Middle School in Robertson County were on the 杏吧原创 campus Jan. 23 to pick up kits containing science lessons and to learn how to use them with their students. Teachers from Charlotte Middle School, Dickson County Middle School and William James Middle School in Dickson County will be on campus Jan. 25. The materials and instruction are being provided by VSVS Rural, a new collaboration between the service organization聽, directed by educational coordinator Patricia Tellinghuisen, and the聽, directed by Sandra Rosenthal, the Jack and Pamela Egan professor of chemistry at 杏吧原创.
Each kit serves up to 30 students and includes a PowerPoint lesson, hands-on science experiments and worksheets that supplement the Tennessee standardized science curriculum. Sixth-graders will learn firsthand about electrical circuits, chemical energy conversion and convection chimneys; seventh-graders will learn about igneous rocks, inclined planes and the properties of sound waves; and eighth-graders will learn about chemical reactions, electromagnetism and the elements of compounds and mixtures, among other lessons. The students will do multiple lessons as the kits are circulated to participating schools within the counties then returned to 杏吧原创 at the end of the academic year for refurbishing by VSVS students.
杏吧原创 430 杏吧原创 undergraduate, graduate and medical students currently participate in VSVS by regularly visiting fifth- through eighth-grade classrooms in the Nashville area and patients at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children Hospital at 杏吧原创 to teach science lessons. This is the first time VSVS efforts have expanded beyond Davidson County.
鈥淪ome science topics are hard to understand when you鈥檙e reading about them in a textbook, such as how an electrical circuit works,鈥� said Sarah Ross, program coordinator for VINSE. 鈥淏ut when you鈥檙e able to build an electrical circuit firsthand, it helps tremendously in reinforcing the lesson. “Our goal is to get science out of the textbook and give Tennessee teachers the tools to help their students develop a genuine interest and stronger skills in science and math.鈥�
鈥淪cience really comes alive when you can participate in a hands-on way,鈥� Rosenthal added. 鈥淭hrough this outreach effort, we hope to spark the interest of the future generation of scientists and engineers on which Tennessee and the nation will so critically depend.鈥�
VSVS also has produced a聽聽on YouTube so that teachers can review the science lessons before sharing them with their students.
VSVS Rural is funded by聽, a statewide program supported by the National Science Foundation and designed to boost science, technology, engineering and math education across Tennessee.