Science students offered teaching class

Undergraduate students interested in science and teaching will be able to get some hands on experience next quarter through a class that works with local middle school students.

“We are in need of a more STEM-literate workforce,” says Danika LeDuc, professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry. “More and more jobs in the future are going to require STEM know how.”

LeDuc created the program, called the Hands On Science Teaching Labs, and designed it to revolve around both the undergraduates and the middle school students. The undergraduates “learn the science more deeply” since they have to relay all their scientific knowledge to the younger minds in a “creative and coherent way.”

Science majors can take part in this program through a 2-unit workshop course offered each quarter.

This quarter students could have taken CHEM 3080 to be part of the program. Moving forward, students may sign up for PHYS 3080 in the winter quarter, BIOL 3080 in spring and GEOL 3080 in fall 2015.

The winter class will run Tuesdays from 9:20 a.m. to 12:50 p.m. and will be taught by Assistant Professor Erik Helgren, Ph.D., though the timing and schedule is subject to change per quarter, according to their website.

About five to six times per quarter, the institute hosts field trips to CSUEB for middle school students.

The students enter the classroom, where it’s left up to the undergraduates to teach these students through a station-to-station based group activity.

The middle school students rotate to each station and the undergraduates give presentations and work with the students in hopes of getting them interested in science and math.
LeDuc said the goal is for the middle schoolers to be challenged by activities that require more individual reasoning.

For example, the density columns experiment, where students are directed to pour several liquids of various densities into a glass tube.

Since liquids with relative densities do not mix, the liquids form very distinctive layers in the tube, but the students are not informed of this which leads them to rely on their critical thinking skills and inquisition.

They are told make their own predictions of what will occur and after seeing the results they use their own logic to figure out why.

“We’ve tried to make the science activities more open-ended and require them to make predictions, communicate their observations, and argue from evidence,” said LeDuc.

All of this is inspired by the Next Generation Science Standards, developed by the California Department of Education, which involves a revamped science curriculum for California public schools.

LeDuc wants future teachers and students alike to be prepared for these upcoming changes in expectations.