I only wear a lab coat when my boss's boss is around

My friend, a grade six teacher, hates teaching Science. She is a great woman, and undoubtedly a fantastic teacher, but science is not her thing. For this reason alone, I signed up to become a volunteer with the Let’s Talk Science program. The program links up volunteers and teachers so that smarmy kids can learn about the big bad world of Science from a RealLife Scientist. I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty damn excited to be designing and implementing several hands-on activities. The beaut = the program is well-funded enough that I got to order some awesome shit from Ward’s. It was better than shoe shopping! (Brrr…is it cold in here?)

I remember being an excited fifth grader who knew all the names & positions of nine planets off by heart and having a fucking mean twit teacher whose hate for Science was exceeded only be her loathing of us, it seemed. What a let-down. And it’s a damn shame, too, because that age (11-13 yrs) is so crucial in developing an identity - it was for me anyway - and connecting to the things that I still love today. Astronomy. Science Fiction. Science. Geology, anatomy, molecular biology.

So we’ve got a few activity modules planned out. The first will be in astronomy in January. From Ward’s Science I got a few eclipse/solar motion activity sets, as well as an overhead planetarium. (Apparently, there is a ginormous blow-up/crawl-through planetarium available to the school district, but since there is only one and it’s often out for repairs, the back-log of requests is huge. Another reason why the LTS budget is much appreciated by the utterly cash-strapped teachers). In March will be the forensic section. Twelve year olds watch a lot of CSI apparently (young much?), so that module will be a particular hit. Ward’s has some luminol detection & fingerprinting kits for mock crime solving activities. I’m also planning on introducing some anthropological forensic science too, a covert anatomy lesson per se, because that’s how I got interested (Quincy M.E. huzzah). Finally, the diversity of life module will be about good bacteria/bad bacteria, which is, essentially, an excuse to bring in cheese & yogurt to bribe the kids into good behaviour. It’s going to be geek-licious.