Featured Volunteer - Jan Edward

Jan is an amazingly passionate and dedicated volunteer who began working with Let's Talk Science at the start of the 2010-2011 school year! He has visited schools and community groups within Guelph and in rural areas like Dublin, and he performed an amazing 10 activities last year! 

Q. What are you studying and what have you studied in the past?

A.I did my undergraduate degree in Wildlife Biology in Guelph and I loved it so much that I am still here pursuing my MSc degree studying stress neuroendocrinology.

Q. Why did you become a Let's Talk Science volunteer?

A. Science has always been a passion of mine. Science is practically everywhere in today's world. It is transforming our world in a rapid pace. However, Science is under appreciated. I volunteered for Let's Talk Science to pass on my passion to younger students and at the very least, for the students to gain an appreciation for Science. I believe that  being able to understand the importance of science in our everyday lives is not only an advantage but a necessity. More importantly, I want everyone to know that Science is fun!

Q. What has been your favourite part of volunteering (or what is the best activity that you've done so far)?

A. One of my most memorable Let's Talk Science experience is visiting schools in rural areas. The students are very excited to have us visit their school as they have very few visitors in the school year. This makes the long trip very rewarding. As rural students do not have the same level of access to science programming as urban students, I feel that these trips makes a huge impact as far as science outreach goes.

Past Featured Volunteers:

• Derek
• Kaity

New Year, New Coordinator, New Volunteers.. Same Fun!

Can you believe that it's already September?!? The new school year is ready to start, and Let's Talk Science at the U of G is ramping up for another super fun, super successful year!

We have grown from one coordinator to two! This year, Linda will be joined by a second PhD student from the U of G, Amanda, who will help out with connecting volunteers to teachers and educators! Amanda is also heading up an amazing DNA Barcoding activity (more on that another day!). 

This fall, we are offering several information and training sessions to help bring new graduate students into the program! The information sessions are an optional way for you to learn a little bit more about the program and what we are looking for volunteers to commit to. Attendance at a training session is MANDATORY before we can let you go out into classrooms and community groups!

Information sessions will be held:

Tuesday, September 13th at 2:00pm in the GreenhouseCafe, Bovey Bldg.

Tuesday,September 20th at 4:30 pm in 1800 Pathobiology

Thursday, October 6th at 4:30 pm in 1714Lifetime Learning Centre

Monday, October17th at 4:30 pm in 1714Lifetime Learning Centre

Training sessions will be held:

Tuesday, September 20th from 5-8 pm in 1800 Pathobiology

Thursday, October 6th from 5-8 pm in 1714Lifetime Learning Centre

Monday, October17th from 5-8 pm in 1714Lifetime Learning Centre 

I hope you can join us for another awesome year!

2010-2011 Award Winning Volunteers!

I can't believe it's the end of the school year already! Things have finally started to quiet down (except for the activities from summer schools and community groups!), which means that it's time to name this year's volunteer and activity of the year award recipients! On June 30th, we had a volunteer appreciation and awards night to honour the hard work of all of our fantastic volunteers.

The first award that was distributed was the Activity of the Year Award, which is given to the volunteer (or volunteers!) who develop and exceptionally creative, useful, and detailed activity.  The winners of this year's Activity of the Year Award were Nick S. and Angie R. for their activity about pulleys and levers!  Honourable mentions went to Amanda N. for her amazing Barcoding activity and to Adam T., whose anatomy field trip didn't quite see the light of day (but which was still pretty amazing!).

The second award that we distributed was the Christopher Zweerman Volunteer of the Year Award, which is given to a volunteer who has demonstrated a tremendous amount of passion, dedication, and creativity. This award is named in honour of the U of G's first Volunteer of the Year, Christopher Zweerman, who tragically passed away in 2010. We chose to name the award in his honour because he exemplified all of the qualities that make for a fantastic volunteer.
The winner of the 2010-2011 Christopher Zweerman Volunteer of the Year Award is Midori B., who not only performed an astounding 15 activities, but who also traveled to rural communities, developed new activities, and lent a hand with the All Science Challenge!  Honourable mentions went to Jan (Edward) L., who was also an amazingly dedicated volunteer who spent an enormous number of hours working both in Guelph and in rural communities; to Derek T., who single-handedly managed one of our busiest partnerships (and still found time to do other activities!); and to Kaity R., who not only had a hand in Adam's developing field trip activity, but who also performed several activities and who stepped up when other volunteers became unavailable on short notice.

We also had several volunteers who were nominated for national awards!!  Lisa W. was nominated for the National Volunteer of the Year Award due to her creativity, strong teaching skills, and dedication.  She is an outstanding volunteer! The CIHR Synapse award recognizes an outstanding activity in the field of health science. Amanda W. and Marina N. were nominated for this award based on their fantastic activity about microbes, and they were national finalists for this award!!

Thank you SO MUCH to all of the amazing volunteers this year! We really achieved some amazing things this year, and none of it would have been possible without you!

The All Science Challenge!!

After months of preparation, on Thursday, May 26th, the U of G hosted its first ever All Science Challenge!! Ten teams of students in grades 6-8 from five area schools competed for the top prize! All of the volunteers, teachers, and spectators were absolutely blown away by the questions that the students were answering! The kids worked their brains off to prepare for the big day, and their hard work really paid off! All of the competitors, whether they won or not, can be extremely proud of how they performed.

A HUGE thank you is owed to a huge number of people! In no particular order:

• Thank you to our fantastic sponsors for providing many of the materials and prizes!!
• Thank you to the national office of Let's Talk Science for their organization and support!
• Thank you to all of the volunteers who worked so hard to make the big day a success!
• Thank you to all of the teachers who worked overtime to help their students prepare!
• Thank you to the friends and families of the competitors for their support, both in advance and on the big day!
• And, of course, thank you to the competitors, who spent many hours working to study the All Science Challenge handbook!

To see all the photos that were taken on the big day, check out our Picasa album. Keep reading to hear about the big day!

Guest Post - Trip to Moosonee and Moose Factory

Jess is an outstanding volunteer who just returned from a week-long volunteer-a-thon in Moosonee and Moose Factory alongside a volunteer from Ottawa! She has written a post about her activities. You can check out a collection of photos on our Picasa!

May 8-10 2011  

From the moment we arrived at the tiny airport just outside the small community of Moosonee, we realized that this was going to be a week full of surprises and new experiences.  Our accommodations were in an area where teachers at the local catholic elementary school mainly lived,  about a 5 minute walk from “downtown” and communities only grocery store.  We arrived early in the afternoon on Sunday, therefore we had a good amount of time to prepare for our first set of presentations the next day.  The next morning we arrived at the docks to catch a water taxi over to Moose Factory.  This town is located on an island accessible by boat in the summer, ice bridge in the winter, and helicopter during the ice freeze-up and thaw outs in the spring and fall.  This means that if a student from Moosonee attends school on the island they take a helicopter to class for around 4 weeks every year!