What are the effects of science outreach by college students with elementary school children?

Abstract

This project focused on developing a service learning group of college students to do science outreach with elementary students as a win-win opportunity to increase the content knowledge of all the students involved, give the college students the opportunity to empower the elementary students, and fulfill some of the needs of the college awareness program at an elementary school. Analysis of this project was completed using results from pre- and post-outreach experience questionnaires as a way to establish demographic information of the participants, get comparative awareness and interest of college and science information, and find some common points to make connections between the groups of students. Questionnaires were also used for the classroom teachers to understand how outreach benefited their classroom. Journals were utilized with college students as well as wrap-up meetings after each outreach experience in order to document personal experiences both as a mentor as well as students growing in their own content mastery. I also kept notes of the experience from my viewpoint.