Volunteer Opportunities

This is an example. The links will not work


January 27, 2009, 4:58 PM
Elementary School Science
By: JOHN MEAGHER
Categories: Other: Science and Engineering

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I work for Retired Scientists, Engineers and Technicians, a non-profit that places volunteers in elementary schools in the DC area (looking to add RTP, NC soon) to lead the students in science experiments. Our goal is to show young students that science is interesting and fun. A volunteer's program typically involves six one-hour sessions with the same group of students, followed by a field trip. ReSET is building its environmental science program and has a number of related experiments and training available. ReSET pays for equipment and supplies, and reimburses volunteers' transportation costs. If you are interested in helping to build America's future environmental workforce, please contact John Meagher, ReSET Executive Director: johnmeagher@cox.net or 703-250-0236.

Founded by Dr. Harold Sharlin, the ReSET volunteer program has operated successfully in the Washington D.C. area since 1988. By introducing elementary school children to unique and engaging experiences with science and math, the ReSET program provides students with learning opportunities they do not receive in their regular classwork. The hope is that their experiences working with ReSET volunteers will encourage them to think more positively about science and math, to select them as electives when they reach high school, and to consider a future career in a math or science-related field.

ReSET volunteers spend six hours of classroom time each term teaching children hands-on science through in-class exercises and inquiry-based experiments, followed by a field trip to a science laboratory or museum. For example, in Spring 2009 ReSET took three classes on The Living Classrooms environmental science cruise, where the students sample water quality and the biology of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers.
 Scientists and engineers who volunteer for ReSET develop their own experiments, in collaboration with their teachers, for the six periods they are in the classroom. Alternatively, ReSET has developed 14 experiments in water science that are available for volunteers. Volunteers also share with the children how one becomes a scientist/engineer, and what kinds of jobs they’ve had. Among our current volunteers are a physical anthropologist, a medical doctor, a water quality engineer, a biologist, a microbiologist, and an electrical circuit designer.
Volunteers reinforce and enhance the classroom teaching of science, and also consciously design exercises and experiments in support of the applicable K–12 Science Standards for the District of Columbia, and Montgomery, Anne Arundel, and Baltimore Counties in Maryland. For example, one volunteer, a former chemist, teaches a unit on polymers and gives the children specific scientific tasks—one child prepares the solution, another measures the varying lengths of a polymer fiber with a yardstick, and a third records the results in a notebook. .  In this way, the volunteer encourages the children to think and behave like scientists.
Another volunteer complements a teacher’s Earth Sciences unit by discussing with the children what they can learn about early (Neanderthal) man’s height, posture, and appearance, based on the muscle markings of the bones. Recently, a teacher in one of ReSET’s schools expressed how pleased he was that the volunteer, a Statistician formerly with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, had covered the concepts of chance and probability with the children, as questions on probability and graphing were included on the standardized math tests that year 


One of ReSET’s long-term goals is to produce a citizenry that is prepared to effectively participate in public decisions on issues of science and society. Another is to increase the size and diversity of the future scientific workforce in the U.S. by stimulating interest among young people in pursuing related academic and professional careers.
 








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