What happens when you bring together caring, thoughtful scientists and classrooms full of 7th graders?
Something that on the surface may appear like controlled chaos, while deeper down is giving every kid a chance to be taken seriously as they endeavor to uncover new knowledge about something that interests them – from candy to plants, from sports equipment performance to eye-popping chemical reactions and much, much more.
The “Be a Scientist” 7th grade mentoring program reaches every 7th grade science class across all three Berkeley middle schools, engaging more than 180 UC Berkeley grad students, postdocs (and even some upper division undergrads) in coaching more than 700 kids through independent research projects.
said one 7th grader in describing the experience of having individual in-class support over the 6-week session. Students valued the opportunity to decide what to investigate, to have the support of the “cool, patient, encouraging” mentors, and to have access to specialized scientific equipment. |
Says program co-coordinator Darlene Yan: “During any given week, the level of engagement and interest from the students is impressive. Students are talking with each other all about their experiments, graphs, data — helping each other out, actively conversing or working with their mentors. The teacher is able to walk around and help students individually. Together with CRS staff and assistants, the adult to student ratio is very high. Because students have chosen their own experiments, there is a lot of buy-in, and so the desire to achieve good results is high.”
Teachers describe the program as “essential, beneficial” and “truly student centered.”
One of the most salient, and I think overlooked benefits of this program is the amount of talking about science that my students do every day of this project. Some of these students are very reluctant to speak in front of an entire class, so these low stress small group or one on one conversations are just perfect for them to stretch their wings.
 |
 |
One of my (English language learner) students who struggles with science made a really good experiment. I could tell that she got more confident as the weeks went by, and she was able to present her project successfully. After this, she told me she felt more confident, supported and able to understand basic scientific concepts.
The Be a Scientist mentoring program immerses 7th graders in the practices of science, including designing and conducting investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, and communicating about their findings, all of which are expected in the new standards. Each mentor works with the same small group of students once per week (generally 4-5 students per mentor, for maximum individual attention), guiding students through each step of the process of research, evaluation, and communicating about their results. Mentors provide coaching and support as students engage in the scientific process of developing a testable hypothesis, procedures for experimentation, and data analysis. Students are work at their own appropriate levels, successfully completing an independent investigation.
While many students had a generally positive attitude toward science prior to the program, most came away with a greater understanding of, and interest in, science and engineering. While many students reflected after the program that “science can be hard, challenging, or even frustrating,” that recognition came about because they gained a greater understanding of the process of science and what it takes to conduct a careful investigation, analyze data, and often discover unexpected results that lead to even more questions.
Said more than one student: “Science is awesome!”
