"Communicating Science" is a semester-long course for Berkeley undergraduates, co-developed by the Lawrence Hall of Science and science faculty, that introduces science majors to the skills, excitement, and magic of engaging elementary school children in science.
With initial funding from the Dreyfus Foundation, "Communicating Science" started in 1997 as "Communicating Chemistry," a collaboration between Chemistry Professor Angelica Stacy and LHS staff member Jennifer Claesgens. In subsequent years, this course was expanded to include other scientific disciplines and faculty—Professor Roger Falcone and Lecturer Bruce Birkett from Physics, and Professor Gibor Basri from Astronomy—and additional Hall staff, Lynn Barakos and Kevin Beals.
"Communicating Science", which typically enrolls fifty Berkeley undergraduates annually is always co-taught by one or more science faculty members and one or more LHS educators. Consistent with the Hall's approach to instruction, it models good teaching and focuses on important pedagogical issues such as questioning strategies, addressing misconceptions, and leading discussions; it uses a series of effective, widely tested, K-6 science instructional materials developed at the Hall. The theoretical aspects of teaching are always interwoven with practical lesson applications, preparing the students for the field work portion of the course. In local elementary school classrooms, they present a series of six sessions of hands-on science lessons using inquiry-based activities. By sending Berkeley undergraduates into elementary classrooms, the program helps teachers strengthen their science programs and provides children with accessible role models. Bringing the resources of the University to the community is a creative and effective way to enhance elementary students' preparation for career paths through higher education.
The Hall's Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence has developed a sister course, "Communicating Ocean Sciences," for undergraduate and graduate students in Integrative Biology and Earth & Planetary Sciences. Lecturer Deborah Penry and Associate Professor Lynn Ingram have worked with LHS staff Catherine Halversen and Rick MacPherson to develop the course and share it with faculty from across the U.S. Four other institutions are now offering this course and a dozen more are scheduled to teach it in 2005-2006. A proposal for Communicating Engineering is in the works.
Having taken the course, one undergraduate says, "I have shifted my overall goal towards education...the practice of teaching informed my understanding of educational theory and my knowledge of theory benefited my teaching technique...What I had previously thought of as the activity of conveying information became an opportunity to combine theory and experience into a creative act."