Thank you volunteers!!

As the fall semester wraps up, we've been taking some time to look back on the amazing things that have been accomplished by our volunteers! The fall semester always rushes by; we spend the first month and a half recruiting and training volunteers, and the first in-class visits usually only begin around the middle of October. By the time we get to December, many of the volunteers understandably need to take a step back to prepare for their own exams (and to deal with a heavy load of TA-ship duties)! Despite these challenges, the fall 2011 semester has been a tremendous success by any metric!

• The "partnership-style" of pairing volunteers with teachers directly has allowed volunteers more freedom and flexibility in arranging times that work well in their own schedules! As a result, more activities are happening more frequently at more convenient times!
• Our first rural trips of the year to Arthur, Orangeville, and (not quite rural, but a hike for us!) Durham went smashingly well!
• Amanda's DNA Barcoding activities with high school students across Ontario have been a huge success, and she and her students have made some interesting discoveries (more on this in a later post!)
• So far this year, according to the activities logged on the portal, we have reached an absolutely unbelievable 1,000 youth in Guelph and the surrounding area!!! Considering that last year was a record-breaking year.. and that at this time last year, we had reached 433 youth... I think it's fair to say that Let's Talk Science volunteers at the U of G are on track for another year of big achievements!!
• Probably our most important measure of success is knowing that the volunteers have made a difference. I can't think of a better way to show how much the volunteers' hard work is appreciated than this beautiful card that volunteers Xin and Ramya received from Ms. Kurtz-Favero's grade 1's!

Have a fun, relaxing, safe, friend-and-family-filled winter break everyone!!

DNA Discovery!

Last week, volunteers from Let's Talk Science at the U of G presented hands-on activities about DNA to the kids in the Family Housing community at the University of Guelph! The kids had the chance to extract DNA from a banana, to solve a mystery using DNA evidence, to draw the resulting baby from a "chromosome mixup" game, and to make their own take-home model of DNA.. which probably didn't last very long when they left the community center ;)

Aya and Linda filtering the banana for the DNA extraction!

Aboud showing off the chromosome mixup baby!

Checking out what real DNA looks like!

Candy DNA!!