BRINGING SCIENCE TO THE UNDERSERVED.
Title I public schools in Santa Monica have been in dire circumstances regarding science education, where exposure to this discipline is nonexistent or severely limited in early grades. In response, Crossroads Community Outreach Foundation (CCOF) created the P.S. Science program to address this need for early elementary school science education in public schools.
Astellas USA Foundation saw the P.S. Science program as a perfect extension of its mission to help reach inside the classroom to inspire students to develop an interest and proficiency in STEM subjects, and in 2015 provided a sizeable grant to support the P.S. Science program.
Thanks to Astellas USA Foundation's support, classroom teachers are now equipped to bring memorable, engaging science lessons to 725 underserved students attending local Title I schools. This sustainable program includes a three-year teacher-training component, whereby a P.S. Science instructor leads the program for three years while training the classroom teacher in the program. After three years, the teacher can sustain the program, allowing the instructors to train new teachers and P.S. Science to expand the program to additional Title I schools.
Each week first, second and third-graders at Saint Anne School and McKinley Elementary School in Santa Monica and William Green Elementary School in Lawndale experience the wonder and surprise that accompanies interactive science instruction. For example, students experiment to learn about inertia, see how seatbelts protect passengers and make ice cream while learning about the changing states of matter. P.S. Science also offers a popular after-school science club for students who have completed the program, and is piloting a fourth and fifth grade classroom program. This year, as a result of the children's engagement and interest in science, the first-ever science fair at McKinley Elementary School resulted in 45 student projects.
After an interactive lesson demonstrating the effects of water runoff, a second grader from William Green Elementary school went home and took her mother on a walk around the neighborhood to collect trash to prevent it from entering the storm drains. A third grader exclaimed while dissecting her owl pellet to find the prey bones, “This is the best day of my life!” Ms. Samonte, a second grade teacher, explained “P.S. Science has made a wonderful impact on my students. They become little curious investigators who want to keep learning. Some of my quiet and shy students become alive when it comes to science. They're active participants in discussing their thinking with their group! We absolutely are thankful for this program!”
CCOF is an institutional community service initiative of the Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences, a progressive, independent K-12 school in Santa Monica.
