Volunteer Andreea Gheorghe (left) answers students' exuberant questions during her demonstration on the properties of matter. Grade 1 student Koa McAninch delights in displaying his slimy creation. Kelli Dunne photos.
A group of Grade 1 and 2 students from Tumbler Ridge Elementary learned all there is to know about slime! The kids were immersed in the world of matter and mixtures during a visit from Let’s Talk Science volunteers from the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University last Thursday (May 12).
Let’s Talk Science volunteers, who are current students or recent graduates from UBC and SFU, engaged the kids in exciting hands-on science, where they made their own batches of colourful slime, while explaining the properties of matter and mixtures.
“Doing hands-on science activities with kids of all ages is a great way for them to utilize their creative minds and experience their full potential,” said Andreea Gheorghe, volunteer and Bachelor of Science student from UBC. “The kids seemed to truly enjoy the experience, had lots of fun and loved the chance to get their hands involved in the process.”
A second goal of these traveling science volunteers is to make science learning relevant and accessible so children and youth at any age can understand how science affects their lives. Rylin McPherson, a Grade 1 student, was intrigued and commented he was “really mad about matter,” while anxiously awaiting the upcoming experiments.
“We base a lot of our activities on materials that teachers and students have access to: popsicle sticks, straws, modeling clay, spaghetti and balloons,” said Denise Lang, Let’s Talk Science Coordinator at SFU. “While these aren’t your typical ‘science supplies’, they are actually great tools and serve to break the stereotype that science is removed from everyday life, requires expensive equipment and fancy lab-coats.”
True to their word, the demonstration in Ms. Leuze's Grade 1 class was conducted with water, plastic cups, and a thickening colorful ooze which the kids happily had the chance to mix themselves. With a jovial and somewhat mischievious expression, Brady Turner, another student in the class said, “It's really, really fun and goopey! ”
Gheorghe is highly enthusiastic about bringing science to rural areas and loves seeing the students overwhelming responses. She states that “the students loved everything, had lots of fun and by far the slime experiment was their favorite.”
Let’s Talk Science aims to deliver free science outreach to rural, remote and Aboriginal communities, as well as urban centres
“Science outreach road trips are a great way to reach a lot of schools that don't normally get many visitors like us,” says Lang.
The Government of British Columbia, through the Year of Science Initiative, has provided support for the science outreach trip to this community.
Let’s Talk Science is an award-winning national charitable science outreach organization. Through this outreach, more than 2,600 enthusiastic post-secondary student volunteers at 33 universities and colleges across Canada are involved in the process to turn more than 120,000 kids on to science, engineering and technology each year.
For the students involved at Tumbler Ridge Elementary, this most definitely was the case!
