CELS CARES grant helps URI students bring science to Providence middle school students

By RUDI HEMPE
CELS News Editor & Reporter
(story starts below photo at left)

Recently about 12 of the middle school students made a field trip to the Kingston Campus where they were treated to a show at the planetarium and given a tour of the campus. “They liked the dorms the best,” says Watson. For most, this was a first trip to a university campus. The main purpose of this trip was to demystify the university experience and help them visualize going to college as a possible future. Another field trip is planned for the students next spring.

The 4-H Pathways program’s goal is to recruit minorities into the disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineer and Math), explains Watson, and while the science being exposed to the students is fairly basic, the URI mentors do a lot of preparation—they meet regularly to plan the curricula, to figure out innovative ways to deliver the curricula and even to practice new techniques.

Transportation for the youngsters, sixth-through-eighth graders, can be an issue. For those who attend the after-school classes, there is a late bus but for other activities busing can be expensive. Recruiting youngsters to attend the programs is also a challenge but Watson is hopeful that Pathways can hook up with the Providence After School Alliance and the College Crusade of RI, to help with recruiting and other issues. Volunteers in Providence Schools will also help with recruiting.

The CELS CARES grant that has made 4-H Pathways for Success in Science a reality has another year to go and already there are multiple indications that the program is a success, says Watson. As a result, efforts are underway to secure another grant to continue the progress.

Beth McArdle helps a youngster fashion a tube for a experimental rocket.

With budget constraints and other issues, the teaching of science in inner city middle schools is often compromised but for the past year, an energetic group of URI students is trying to address the problem

The students, most of them in CELS, are the mentors in an outreach program called “4-H Pathways for Success in Science” which was created through a CELS CARES CE Innovative Grant that was given to the Children, 4-H and Families Program. The grant was authored by Marcia Morreira and Phyllis Bocage, both of the Children, 4-H and Families Program and Kim Anderson, Deborah Grossman Garber and Barbara Nowicki of the CELS Office of Student Affairs. Last spring and again this fall, the mentors have been traveling weekly to Providence and Pawtucket to open the eyes of middle school students, most of them minorities, to the wonders of science.

4-H Pathways is strictly a volunteer operation—the mentors volunteer their time and the middle school students volunteer their after school time.

Beth McArdle, a URI senior, is one of those mentors. She plans to go into teaching when she graduates but she’s already getting a head start through a special topics class called NRS 491 called “Practical Environmental Education in an Urban Setting.” All who take the class have to be mentors.

A concrete curb served as a lunching pad for this miniature rocket that was built by some youngsters in the Pathways program.

That course is taught by Tara Watson, who oversees the Coastal Fellows Program in CELS and David Abedon a professor and extension specialist in the Department of Natural Resources Science.

This fall, that class has produced 13

mentor volunteers who enjoy the challenge of delivering science in digestible portions to students whose attention spans are often short. They do that with a packet of creative ideas including hands-on activities and “icebreakers,” says McArdle. One of the games is for each student to tell two truths and one lie about themselves and their classmates have to guess which one is the lie. About the only school-like activity, says McArdle is a multiple choice test given before the classes start and after they end so the mentors have some sort of idea of the progress.

The challenges are many especially since most of the students have had little exposure to science. Another challenge is that many of the students are not proficient in English. Lucia Merino, the Pathways Student Mentoring Assistant, serves as a Spanish translator frequently.

“It is amazing to see the kids grow in such a short amount of time and look up to the mentors as friends and role models,” says Merino. “The positive impact of this program is something I see every time I go to Providence and see the kids develop confidence in science and eager to learn more. The groups of kids we had this semester were amazing and still show up to the program despite their problems at home. I hope more URI students who really have a passion to help and make a difference can participate in future semesters. Being bi-lingual or tri-lingual helps.”

Of the 30 youngsters in the program this semester, most were Latino/Hispanic and three, new arrivals, did not speak English at all.

McArdle has been conducting a weekly after-school hours class at the Gilbert Stuart Middle School in Providence on rocketry and aerospace. Through such popular topics, she and others can teach such things as Newton’s Laws of Motion. Of course, the carrot at the end of this class will be to go outside and actually shoot off bottle rockets.

Another after-hours class is being held at the Jenks Junior High in Pawtucket where agriculture is the topic and yet another class, on Saturday mornings, is being held at the VIPS Center (for Volunteers in Providence Schools) where ecology and wildlife biology are the topics.