Have science, will travel

Sean Rushton

At the forefront of championing science awareness and engagement, a unique outreach program at the University of Ottawa recently hosted a week-long visit by 16 high school students from remote communities across Northern Ontario.

The Science Travels program aims to bring the knowledge and expertise of graduate students to youth in remote and Aboriginal communities in Northern Ontario and provide these young people with dynamic and interactive experiences in all areas of science: biology, physics, chemistry, engineering, medicine, health sciences and technology.

“The week was an absolute hit,” says uOttawa’s Barbara Vanderhyden, a strong advocate for science education in schools, as well as promoting awareness of scientists and the importance of their work. In addition to being the inaugural Corinne Boyer Chair in Ovarian Cancer Research, Vanderhyden is responsible for having established the Ottawa branch of the Let’s Talk Science Partnership Program in 1993. This latest addition, Science Travels, was launched in 2006 as the result of Let’s Talk Science’s partnership with the Community Service Learning Program, Student Academic Success Service and the faculties of Science, Engineering and Medicine.

The first series of trips for the Science Travels program took place in October and November 2006. During these week-long trips to various regions of Northern Ontario, teams of graduate students with a diverse knowledge of science, engineering and technology delivered an amazing 68 workshops to enthralled high school students on topics as varied as forensics, optical illusions, earthquakes and global warming.

All the participating high schools and native friendship centres were then invited to nominate their most promising Grade 11 student with an aptitude for science. Sixteen students and two teachers came to Ottawa from May 28 to June 1, where they met with professors, listened to talks on various aspects of science and technology, performed laboratory research and met with student mentors.

The Science Travels program aims to motivate these young students to pursue their interests in science. At the same time, the program provides mentoring opportunities for graduate students, who wish to help high school students further their science education.

“We made a point of pairing graduate and high school students with similar interests and sending them on informal walks off campus,” explains Vanderhyden. “We hoped that the students would feel more comfortable asking questions about careers in science and generally tapping into the knowledge and expertise of their graduate mentors in a casual atmosphere.”

Having recently won the Biomedical Science Ambassador Award from Partners in Research for her tireless work in science education and outreach, Vanderhyden is currently working on the next round of Science Travels workshops and exchanges.

Very much aware of the need for society to become more scientifically literate, Vanderhyden is proud of the “win-win” dynamic, which continues to fuel these outreach programs.

“In addition to improving science literacy, these mentoring and teaching partnerships serve the very important role of teaching scientists-in-training to speak about their work to the general public,” she explains.

Vanderhyden believes that if we want graduate students to become good teachers, we need to provide them with opportunities to develop these skills, which ideally will enable science advocacy to be an integral component of the careers of these young scientists.