Vanderbilt Student Volunteers For Science

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Vanderbilt Student Volunteers For Science
Vanderbilt University Nashville,
TN vanderbilt.edu/vsvs
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Introduction

• Vanderbilt Student Volunteers for Science (VSVS)
  is a service organization composed of
  undergraduate, graduate, and medical students who
  are committed to bringing inquiry-based, hands-on
  science lessons to middle-school students.

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Goals

• Provide Vanderbilt students with an opportunity
  to explain science to school children.
• Help college students recognize their
  responsibilities for community service and the
  importance of volunteer service in schools.
• Provide role models for school children.
• Stimulate an interest in teaching as a
  profession.

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What Does VSVS Do?

• Our Regular Classroom Program
• Partners a team of 3-4 volunteers with a 5-8th
  grade classroom teacher in Metro Nashville
  schools.
• Each team visits the same classroom 4 times per
  semester and teaches a different hands-on science
  lesson for 1 period.

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What Does VSVS Do?

• Other Programs Include
• Providing volunteers and lessons for After-School
  Science Enrichment in Science clubs or tutoring
  groups.
• Provide science activities for patients at the
  Vanderbilt Childrens Hospital
• Provide lessons and materials for other
  Vanderbilt groups to use. Alternative Spring
  Break teams, Dance Marathon activities, Greek
  and Honor society outreach activities, Alliance
  for Cultural Diversity and Research groups
  family science night, individual students
  outreach or service learning activities

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Collaborates with Other Vanderbilt Faculty

• Organized and trained teams of Chemistry 101
  students to go to selected Metro 4th grade
  classrooms as part of their service learning
  requirement.
• Organized GAANN students (Chemistry graduate
  students) into VSVS teams so that they could
  fulfill their outreach requirement.
• Collaborates with other Vanderbilt organizations
  (eg Center for Science Outreach).

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VSVS Facts

• DURING THE 2006-2007 YEAR
• 111 classrooms were visited by the VSVS teams.
• Thirteen schools were reached.
• The number of children reached was about 3500.

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VSVS Growth since 1994, VSVS has grown from 94
to over 600 volunteers in 2007. We are the
largest volunteer organization on campus
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VSVS Facts

• Our volunteers come from all schools, not just
  science or engineering

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And come from all classes
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VSVS Reaches Out to the Community

• There are 74 lessons on our website
• Our lessons are available for anyone to download
  for their own use. Training presentations are
  also included with each lesson. These are an
  invaluable part of the lesson, in that it allows
  the reader to visualize the experimental
  procedure. (Our most notable user has been
  Steve Spangler who has used our Magic Sand lesson
  in his teacher workshops in Colorado.)
• vanderbilt.edu/vsvs

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Chromatography (solving a crime!)
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Cryogenics (How to make ice cream using liquid
Nitrogen)
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Chemical Reactions
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Making Slime (is it a solid or a liquid?)
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Properties of Carbon Dioxide (making foam)
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Pulleys
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How Can VSVS Help You?

• Provide support letters for the outreach
  component of Faculty research grants. (2
  collaborations are currently underway with
  Faculty who have received NSF grants).
• Help you choose suitable schools and grade levels
• Help you decide an outreach component that could
  be used in a local school

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Contact Information

• For more information, feel free to contact me
• pat.tellinghuisen_at_vanderbilt.edu