Turning Outreach into Community Engagement in a Middle School - Graduate Student Partnership
Session Format
Poster Session (60 minutes)
Location
Holiday Inn
Second Time and Location
Friday, March 4 from 1:10-1:40 p.m. at the Nessmith-Lane Conference Center
Abstract for the conference program
Scientific outreach is an effective tool for educating communities to particular areas of interest to the academic community. Active engagement with community partners may expand upon outreach programs by identifying the specific needs of a given community. Using outlined best practices of community engagement, graduate students of the Plant Biology department at UGA have taken a small outreach program that catered to Agri-Science classrooms and transformed this program in to a partnership with 7th grade life science teachers at a local middle school. This partnership identified subject areas of particular interest and need for the 7th grade students, in an effort for improved understanding of the current curriculum. This program seeks to increase student interest in the life sciences, as well as knowledge of subject material within their classrooms. The benefits, as well as the challenges, associated with this effort will be discussed.
Proposal Track
Non-research Project
Start Date
3-3-2016 7:00 PM
End Date
3-3-2016 9:00 PM
Recommended Citation
Pilote, Alex, "Turning Outreach into Community Engagement in a Middle School - Graduate Student Partnership" (2016). Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching & Learning Conference (2012-2019). 38.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/stem/2016/2016/38
Turning Outreach into Community Engagement in a Middle School - Graduate Student Partnership
Holiday Inn
Scientific outreach is an effective tool for educating communities to particular areas of interest to the academic community. Active engagement with community partners may expand upon outreach programs by identifying the specific needs of a given community. Using outlined best practices of community engagement, graduate students of the Plant Biology department at UGA have taken a small outreach program that catered to Agri-Science classrooms and transformed this program in to a partnership with 7th grade life science teachers at a local middle school. This partnership identified subject areas of particular interest and need for the 7th grade students, in an effort for improved understanding of the current curriculum. This program seeks to increase student interest in the life sciences, as well as knowledge of subject material within their classrooms. The benefits, as well as the challenges, associated with this effort will be discussed.
