Cardinal Ritter 4-H SERIES Program

Title Cardinal Ritter 4-H SERIES Program

IRB#: 03-5003X

Summary:
Seven Cardinal Ritter high school students are trained in science methods and presentation skills as part of the 4-H SERIES program. This experience has sharpened their personal science knowledge and has given them experience in teaching elementary school students about science.

Issue:
SERIES (Science Experiences and Resources for Informal Education) is an educational program developed to provide instructional experiences that focus on increasing science literacy and the application of science and technology. SERIES goals and objectives are:

To increase an understanding of science, productivity in creative thinking, and skills for obtaining and analyzing scientific information
To use operational processes of science; observing, communicating, comparing, classifying, relating, inferring and applying
To encourage youth to use the problem solving approaches of science in their personal decision making as citizens of our society
To train teenagers and develop their ability to share concepts and processes with youth in grades 3 to 5.

What we've done:
Through the 4-H SERIES Program, seven Cardinal Ritter High School students have developed presentation and teaching skills and have exposed elementary students to the fun of science. The Cardinal Ritter 4-H SERIES Team presents lessons on The Magic of Electricity, Chemicals Are Us, What's Bugging You and Ridges to Rivers.

Impact:
From October 2002 to March 2003, the team members have given 10 presentations to 170 elementary school students.
     From teacher responses, the elementary school students learned the difference between an acid, base and a neutral. The students "learned about senses and how to describe how things look and feel." In many cases, the SERIES presentations cover topics that are not presented in the classroom.
     The seven team members themselves gained presentation skills. One teacher commented "I appreciate the way neither student gave a negative response to the students. No matter how wrong an answer was they were positive with the way they responded."
     A teacher summed up the SERIES presentation as "Overall one word describes this crew! Awesome!"

Cooperators:
     Cardinal Ritter High School
     St. Susanna Elementary School
     All Saints Elementary School