Young scientists in the making on Christian Island
By Sharon Weatherall
BEAUSOLEIL FIRST NATION – Students at Christian Island Elementary School recently had an opportunity to participate in workshops presented by ‘Scientists in School’ (SiS)- Canada’s leading science education charity for kids.
Throughout the day 34 Grade 2 – 5 students participated in two and half hour workshops involving hands-on experience with the workings of simple machines in the morning and pulleys and gears in the afternoon.
The event at CIES was made possible through sponsorship of the Penetanguishene Rotary Club. School teachers and grade eight students helped out during the day. The kids rotated through 6 learning centres.
“I like how it was very hands-on. We don’t have a lots of science resources at the school so this way the kids can take what they learn and apply it to what they have in their text books,” said Teri-Lynn Jordan – grade 2 teacher at CIES.
The SIS mission is to ignite scientific curiosity in children so that they question intelligently; learn through discovery; connect scientific knowledge to their world; and consider a career in science. The SiS vision includes every Canadian child actively engaged in the seeing, and doing and understanding of science.
Founded in 1989, SiS is a dynamic Canadian charity dedicated to helping Kindergarten to Grade 8 students to become ‘scientists in their school’, catalyzing long-lasting interest in science, technology, math, environmental stewardship and engineering and potentially encouraging future careers in science-related fields.
SiS investigative workshops give young scientists the opportunity to interact with ecologists, physicists, engineers and more, and help make even the most reluctant learner enthusiastic. The goal is for every Canadian child to have multiple opportunities to be sparked by science during their formative elementary school years. Annually, more than 630,000 children and youth in more than 23,000 English and French-speaking classrooms in 290 communities across Ontario and Southern Alberta experience a half-day SiS workshop each year. In the last 25 years, over six million children and youth have become scientists in their schools.
SiS supplies one presenter per workshop and Victoria Whiteside enjoyed coming to CIES for the very first time. She has been with the not-for-profit educational program for 4 years now, starting out herself as a volunteer. Whiteside is now one of 300 presenters working in the York, Durham, Toronto and Simcoe school board area, which have delivered over
17,000 workshops.
“I work in Simcoe only travelling to different schools to give workshops throughout the week. The company has been around for 26 years and was started by two science moms who felt it was important that kids get a good grounding in science,” said Whiteside.
“It grew to be the awesome program it is today and I am proud to be part of it. The workshops are hands-on to compliment the curriculum that the students are learning.”
During the simple machines component the students experimented with steep and gradual slopes to learn how each can make it more difficult or easy to move something – in this case a small weighted car. At another centre the students used pulleys to change direction of the efforts – the more pulleys used the easier it gets to move something. One centre involved screws and how they hold things together showing students how threads work. Students also took part in building a car with wheels and axles. They looked at how changing a wheel size helps with how much work you have to do. In another centre they looked at levels and how changing the position of the fulcrum changes the effort.
“Every simple machine is to decrease effort and make our jobs easier for us.
Because SiS is curriculum based the students have taken it in class but the workshops are hands-on and a better way of learning therefore helping to foster a love of science,” said Whiteside who presents five different workshops out of the 32 different workshops available.
Grade 4 student Brian McCue said he found the SiS workshop interesting.
“It kinda goes along with what we were learning at school,” he said.
For more information on SIS visit: www.scientistsinschool.ca