_____________________________________________________ UBC Let's Talk Science Partnership Program E-Newsletter volume 9, issue 5 March 2006 ______________________________________________________ In this issue: - Volunteer of the Month - National Volunteer of the Year Nominees - New Teacher Coordinator - Science Fairs - Rural visits - Upcoming Events - Completed Events - Activity Reports - Win Canucks tickets! - Checking in & Office Hours - Celebrate Research Week - Physics Open House – High Schoolers Encouraged to Attend! - The “Terry” Writing Challenge – win big prizes! - U of T Coordinator position available - Joke of the month _____________________________________________________ Volunteers of the Month - Feb 2006 Congratulations to Rebecca Best and Sasha Wilson!!! Rebecca Best was a Project Leader for one of the UBC Learning Exchange Community Service Reading Week Projects titled “Big on Botany”. She led a group of 20 undergraduate students in an inner city classroom at Mt Pleasant Elementary for 4 days. They explored topics in ecology and botany and even went on a field trip to UBC! Great work Rebecca, you did an outstanding job!!! Sasha Wilson conducted a remarkable 5 classroom visits in just 3 weeks!!! She explored all sorts of topics in physics using hands-on activities with her grade 1 class from Lord Tennyson Elementary. They learned about angular momentum, neutralization laws and momentum transfer using everyday household items. Great job Sasha!!! As always, our volunteer(s) of the month receive(s) a $20 gift card at the UBC Bookstore. Enjoy! _____________________________________________________ National Volunteer of the Year Nominees It was a remarkably tough decision this year, but we had to make a decision on who we nominate for the National Volunteer Award. This year’s three nominees are: Derrick Randall – Spearheaded the rural visit component of the Access Initiative and personally went on the Port Alberni and Merrit visits. He was a member of Mini-School (now SMaRT Skills), judged a pile of science fairs, participated in the Killarney Day Camp and attended the Western Regional Conference. This of course is in addition to his teacher partnership. And… check this out!! (kudos to Alfredo Franco-Cea too!) http://www.ammsa.com/raven/Raven-Feb2-2006.html Nadia Pietravalle – Has participated in so many events, we can hardly keep track of them! Briefly, they range from rural visits (Squamish, Merrit, and (maybe?) Kelowna), judging almost as many science fairs as Derrick (and filled much needed gaps in French-speaking judging rosters), and also participated in extra events like GSS and Bookstore Family Fun Days, not to mention her teacher partnership. Lisa McDonnell – Lisa and partner Heather Coleman continue to have an amazingly strong partnership at Lifesong school and Lisa has added in a HUGE amount of work on compiling the SMaRT Skills manual (activities, instructions, etc for the SMaRT skills program) while also finding time to write for the Science Creative Quarterly and the All Science Challenge handbook. She has judged science fairs and was also nominated for last year’s National Volunteer Award! Congratulations to all our volunteers – we really wish we could put everyone’s name forward, but no INBOX can handle that much information!!! We are truly indebted for all the work you do on behalf of the program and the community/university. Thanks to everyone!!! Keep up the AMAZING work. _____________________________________________________ Teacher Partner Coordinator Appointed: In what may seem like run on from the last section, we have had another very tough decision for the position of Teacher Partner Coordinator. In the end, following a set of four amazing interviews (we were seriously impressed with the level of applications this year!), Lisa McDonnell has been appointed as the new Teacher Partner Coordinator. We’ll make a formal introduction for you at the year-end social for those who haven’t met Lisa yet! PS: Year end social is, well, at year-end (in school terms) – so… late June. _____________________________________________________ Science Fairs Great job so far, with a few more to go. Remember there is a $20 Bookstore Gift Card in it for you if you do 3 or more!!! 1) Lord Nelson Elementary School - March 30 5 pm to 7 pm 2) Greater Vancouver Regional Science Fair - Thursday April 6, 2006 (evening) (for the Regional Science Fair, in addition to letting us know, you also need to sign up via their website at http://www.gvrsf.sciencefairs.bc.ca/judges/ _____________________________________________________ Rural Visits - Help Needed! We still have spots open for Kelowna (Mar 29-31) and REALLY need volunteers (and lab mates/science friends of volunteers) to step up as the demand in Kelowna is UNREAL!!! Please let us know if you can help us out at all! Houston trip is full! February saw groups go to Whistler/Pemberton and Squamish – Reports on the details will come as soon as we collect all the information… but from what I hear, volunteers have been inundated with Student Evaluations dropped off in their mailbox! Way to go folks! Also, I may try to have Derrick and Matt re-create in dramatic form at the end-of-year social what it was like to run a protein gel for the first time while being coached over the phone! Also, if you didn’t read it above… check this out! http://www.ammsa.com/raven/Raven-Feb2-2006.html _____________________________________________________ Upcoming Events GSS Saturday Science Day: Saturday, April 15 – Healthy Heart Day – 10AM – 12PM – please let us know if you’re keen on this. It will take place at the Grad Student Centre Prince of Wales Secondary School Science Week: We have an action packed week of lunch hour presentations, including several presentations on volunteers’s research, some hands on science and a career panel, set for the week of Mar 27-30. If anyone is interested in either joining the career panel (on Tues. Mar. 28) or presenting their research (any day that week), please let us know! Scientific Method and Research Training (SMaRT) Skills (formerly Mini School): We just launched the expanded program for this year (from 2 classrooms worth of students to 9) with the help of the Learning Exchange and their recruitment of 12 undergraduate students to help the graduate student leaders in the schools. More to come as things progress! Mentorship: We are planning to launch a mentorship initiative in April, pairing under-served students from grades 8-10 with an LTS PP mentor. The mentorship program will begin with an on-campus kick-off event where mentors and mentees can meet up and do some fun activities. More details coming very soon! If you are interested in helping to plan this initiative or in being a mentor, please email us! All Science Challenge: Planning for the ASC, which will bring grade 6-8 students to UBC to compete in a series of science competitions May 26th, is well underway. Stay tuned for more details as we get closer to the event. _____________________________________________________ Completed Events The Reading Week Community Service Projects were a resounding success yet again this year. Rebecca Best led a group of 20 undergrads at Mt Pleasant Elementary exploring topics in ecology and botany. Erika Eliason and Rebecca Goulding returned to Admiral Seymour Elementary School again this year with another 15 undergrads to discover who stole the chocolate bars using forensics among other science activities. Both groups made their way to UBC campus during the week to let their students have a taste of all UBC has to offer. Beth, Dave and Erika met with a delegation from China last month! The delegation came to Canada to meet with various groups in order to learn different ways to better promote science and technology in their province. Pictures to be posted on the website sometime soon… The Science Creative Quarterly will house five to six articles from the LTS-PP group this month so keep your eyes peeled (I’m sure we’ll remind you too!). Congrats to Lars, Natasha, Lisa, Kelvin, Rebecca, and Theresa for your awesome contributions and hard work!!!! ______________________________________________________ Activity Reports - Win Canucks tickets! It has been an AWESOME month for classroom visits!!! Great work everyone! If you haven’t yet visited your classroom yet, don’t despair! The school year doesn’t end until June, so you still have plenty of time to get into your classroom. If you need activity ideas, don’t hesitate to email us! Reminder: For every complete activity report we receive, you get one ballot in the Canucks tickets contest – Two seats side by side to see Vancouver play Anaheim on April 10th!!! Visits completed since our last newsletter include: Katie Dinelle explored electricity by building circuits with her grade 6 class from Henry Hudson Elementary. Mona Wu and Rachel Moll introduced their grade 5/6/7 class from Graham Bruce Elementary to bridge building. Anna Machala did 3 visits with her grade 6/7 class from Lord Byng Elementary. She introduced them to rocks and erosion and helped the kids come up with their own experiments. Anna went back a week later to help them write lab reports and then again to watch them present their results. Paul Lusina demonstrated the concepts of coding theory through the use of puzzles with his grade 12 class from John Oliver Secondary. Lillian Ting and her grade 7 class from Our Lady of Perpetual Help learned about decomposers by doing a neat activity with yeast, sugar and balloons! Sara Harbord and Jen Rurak went back to their grade 5/6 class at Tyee Elementary School to show the students the results of their plating bacteria from around the school activity. Sasha Wilson did 5 visits with her grade 1 class from Lord Tennyson Elementary!!! They learned how to squeeze an egg without breaking it, which balloons travel furthest – the ones with lots, medium or little amounts of air, about Newton’s third law using vinegar, baking soda, a pop bottle and cork, about momentum transfer using coins, a cup of water and some paper and finally about angular momentum using a very wet demo! Jed Shimizu explored gas and crystals with his grade 1/2 class from Tillicum Learning Annex. Yvonne Bombard discussed DNA, genetics and genetic diseases with her grade 4/5/6/7 class from Madrona Elementary/ Jeff Fletcher returned to his grade 3/4 class at Sir Richard McBride Elementary and they explored animal adaptations! Jeff borrowed a bunch of furs and skulls from a museum in the Zoology department. If you are interested in borrowing these types of materials, email us and we can give you the info! Shiva Shoai and Tamara Kunz did 3 visits with their grade 7 class from Sir Richard McBride Elementary! They explored pH using different indicators, physical and chemical changes and the 3 states of matter including a couple sublimation demos. Sarah Hanna and Kirk Bergstrom used chromatography to solve a mystery with their grade 4,5,6,7 class at Admiral Seymour Elementary. Mike Gretes and Andrew Wylie did a DNA extraction with their grade 9 class from Windermere Secondary. Did you do an activity recently and don't see it listed here? Then we didn't receive an Activity Evaluation Form from you! Please fill one in ASAP online (http://www.gss.ubc.ca/LTS/ve1.html) or email it to us at: lts@gss.ubc.ca ____________________________________________________ Checking In and Office Hours There are still a number of you who haven’t checked in with us to let us know how your partnership is going! Please remember to email us once you’ve contacted your teacher. If you are having trouble, let us know and we’ll see what we can do to help out. If you need help with activity ideas or need to borrow supplies, please feel free to email us or drop by our office hours: Tuesday from 11-12 Friday from 11-12:30 Our office is located in the Brock Hall Annex, room 2357B (the "B" is important!). _____________________________________________________ Celebrate Research Week March 4th to 11th is Celebrate Research Week at UBC. Check out their website: http://www.research.ubc.ca/celebrateresearch.aspx#17 for more information on all the cool events! _____________________________________________________ Physics Open House – High Schoolers Encouraged to Attend! There is an open house offered by the UBC engineering faculty on March 10th and 11th. High school students are encouraged to come. Check out their website http://www.apsc.ubc.ca/ for more information! _____________________________________________________ THE TERRY WRITING CHALLENGE: Short and sweet…go to this website and you can win big money for STUFF YOU’VE ALREADY WRITTEN!!!! (terry.ubc.ca) _____________________________________________________ U of T coordinator position available The University of Toronto St. George's campus is looking for new coordinators for their Let's Talk Science Partnership Program Site. If you are interested and going to be a grad student at U of T next year, please contact Nicole Miller, Nicole Forgione and Shelley McCabe at lts.grad@utoronto.ca. ________________________________________________________ Joke of the Month Heisenberg is out for a drive when he's stopped by a traffic cop. The cop says, "Do you know how fast you were going?" Heisenberg says, "No, but I know exactly where I am."