Free After School Program Exposes Middle School Students to Science

By Jim Clark, Science Alliance Faculty Advisor

Science Alliance, a free after-school enrichment program, enters its third year in the .

For the past two years, the program has served nearly 50 middle school students from , and .

Patty Carothers of Monte Vista High School founded Science Alliance several years ago with the goal of providing an opportunity for younger students to experience the excitement of scientific inquiry in a safe and supervised environment.

Middle school students ("the buddies") are paired with high school honor students ("the mentors") to guide them through advanced level science projects.

Along the way, the students develop basic skills in planning, executing, and reporting their activities. The culminating event of the year is a district-wide science fair, where the students can display their projects and show off their knowledge.

The district science fair will be followed this year by the first ever Alameda County Science Fair, to be held at Chabot College in March.

EXPLORING YOUR OWN SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS

Every middle school student will work with their mentor to develop a project idea that interests them.

Students in the past have completed projects such as: "the amazing hover craft", "what kind of music is best to study with", "is it possible to bend water", and "is it possible to power a car using soda?"

All projects will be reviewed by club advisors to make sure they follow the safety guidelines.

MEETINGS

The introductory meeting will be Wednesday, Sept. 14, from 6 p.m. to  7:30 p.m. in room H2 at Arroyo High School (room H2 is located by the portables—use the Lorenzo Ave parking lot).

This meeting will introduce parents and their children to the program, its teachers and mentors as well as provide additional information on future meeting dates and possible "Science on Saturday" field trips.

There will be permission slips for parents to sign. Parents are strongly encouraged to attend this meeting.

If you are unable to attend this meeting your child is encouraged to attend and bring the permission slip home.

Credentialed high school science teachers from Arroyo as well as over fifty high school juniors and seniors supervise all Science Alliance meetings.

They begin with a buddy “check in” and end with the mentor physically walking their buddy to meet their parent or guardian.

If your child would need to take a bus to Science Alliance we can arrange for their mentor to meet them at the bus and walk them back when we are done.

For more information on Science Alliance, send an e-mail to jclark@slzusd.org or call (510)317-4122.