With guidance from Manuela Slye, President of the Seattle Council Parent Teacher Association, and Anastasia Sanchez, Science Specialist for Seattle Public Schools, we established a partnership with Denny International Middle School in 2020. HuSCI led virtual Meet a Scientist meet-ups with Denny students from 2020-2021, and due to relaxed COVID-19 restrictions, had the opportunity for our first in-person visit on November 8th, 2022.
In preparation for our visit, we recruited over 80 volunteers from the UW community including graduate and undergraduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and research staff. 20 volunteers underwent a required in-person training session designed and executed by the HuSCI committee. The objectives of our training session were to familiarize volunteers with our 7th grade lesson plan, help volunteers recognize and manage their implicit biases, and have volunteers practice communicating scientific concepts to a middle school audience.
Our visit was a full-day coordinated effort between 20 trained volunteers, 5 committee members, and 7th grade science teachers Jordyn Frost and Briana Azevedo, overall reaching over 250 7th grade students. Denny students met our volunteers during their scheduled science class where we introduced them to our research, guided them through a logic puzzle specifically tailored for their curriculum, and provided the opportunity to ask questions about our research and becoming a scientist. In a brief survey after our visit, over half (55%) of Denny students indicated that they were more interested in meeting a scientist as a result of our 40-minute activity, 70% enjoyed the HuSCI activities, and 93% were interested in a future HuSCI visit. Denny teachers were impressed by our volunteers’ ability to keep their students engaged and provide real-life context for their scientific curriculum.
Anonymous comments from the students were overwhelmingly positive:
“I really liked it, it was fun!”
“You are awesome! Come again.”
“You guys are great!”
“It was great, thank you so much.”
“Very fun, I love how you interact with us. It makes class less boring and it’s comforting to see all types of people be scientists.”
Our first on-site visit was a great success and we look forward to making our future visits even more impactful. HuSCI is currently planning our next on-site visit with the 8th grade classes to be held this Spring.