I spent three hours in Trayes Hall in the Douglass Campus Center yesterday morning as a volunteer for a program sponsored by the Douglass Project (which includes Project SUPER, the undergraduate research group with which I’m involved). The Fourth Grade Science Stars is just that—around 80 fourth graders from elementary schools in New Brunswick came to Rutgers to learn more about science.
Trayes Hall was organized like a science lab/science fair, with six different booths on each identical half of the room, with topics like sound waves, methods to reduce, reuse and recycle, solar energy, the differences between rural, urban, and suburban areas, and cleaning up environmental spills. When I arrived at 9am, I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I had no idea what to do. I was told “No experience necessary.” I panicked a little and asked myself “What am I doing here?!” while I pulled a white lab coat from the box and wandered aimlessly around the room. I ended up helping out at the solar energy booth.
Everything was pretty much set up, complete with a manila folder outlining everything we were to say and teach (and some funny-lame jokes), a colorful posterboard display about solar power and renewable/nonrenewable resources, a computer game about saving energy, four little solar powered cars, and two halogen lamps. All we needed to do was some last-minute preparation. The other volunteers and I figured out a plan (two minutes before the kids walked in, literally). The kids started assembling outside the DCC and the “What am I doing here?!” ran through my head again. If you didn’t know already, I’m terrified of public speaking, even when I’m relatively confident of what I have to say. I couldn’t possibly talk to kids about how photovoltaic cells work and explain which category of resources biomass falls under when I’d only just skimmed through the materials. Too late—the kids walked in and sat down in the middle of the room. Oh well, improv time.
I wonder what the first group of kids thought of us, these scientists in white coats, who stumbled over their words and gestured wildly at the images while trying to figure out how to explain the concepts in nine and ten-year-old-friendly terms. In the end, we all survived. The first time, I didn’t talk, but I ended up explaining the difference between renewable and nonrenewable resources to the kids almost every time after that. I must say, it wasn’t bad at all; if anything, I had a lot of fun teaching the kids (and myself) about solar power. I helped demonstrate how solar panels work—I got to hold the halogen lamp over the cars and tried to send them rolling as far as possible.
Despite the flaws in our presentation, each rotation brought a new group of six kids who were really eager to learn and listen to us. I think of how when we get older we seem to lose the excitement of learning, asking questions, and figuring out how the world around us works. We just take it all in and say “whatever” because it’s not as interesting as something else in our busy lives. But yesterday I learned a really important lesson from the children: when we look at everything as if we know nothing about it, we learn so much more. We learn to appreciate the world and its minute details, we learn to be curious and ask “dumb questions,” and we learn to inspire people without even knowing it.
This is our display board. I talked about the middle section, with the renewable and nonrenewable energy sources. Those lopsided white rectangles are the different energy sources we asked the kids to put into the right categories. Notice the little cars—at least five kids asked if they could keep one.
The science “lab” and very energetic children. It was a little chaotic but definitely a lot of fun.
I must add this to my list of “Things I’ve never done until I’ve come to college.” Oh, and did I tell you I went to my very first football game last week? I also went to Michael Pollan’s talk on food and our society’s need to simplify our diets. Two more for the list…
Our first touchdown just 28 seconds into the game. Look at that sea of red!
Me at the Homecoming game. I left after the end of the 3rd quarter. Too bad I couldn’t stay to finish it :(
Michael Pollan with his display of not-so-wholesome snacks, including Coke, microwavable turkey with gravy, white whole grain bagels, and more.
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