A group of eighth graders broke free from the classroom one afternoon last month, taking several plastic chairs with them.
They made it to the open air, flipped the chairs upside down, and wrapped lengths of string around the legs, glancing up quickly every now and then to see if the teacher was watching.
Year-end prank? The latest social media dare?
Nope.
The students at Santiago Elementary School, which serves children kindergarten through eighth grade, had a mission: to create and release energy.
Their teacher, Esther Flores, was watching, indeed, but also guiding them through the discovery process by challenging them to solve real-world problems.
Re-inspire
It’s a sort of scene that is playing out every day at schools across Orange County, thanks to the efforts of Science@OC, a Santa Ana-based nonprofit organization founded in 2002 to inspire middle school students’ interest in science, math and technology-related subjects.
Or to re-inspire them.
“When kids are young, they love science and learning,” said Science@OC President Sue Neuen. “But by the time they get in middle school, that spark can fade. Science@OC re-ignites that spark.”
The first major backer of Science@OC was the Corona del Mar-based Samueli Foundation, which is known for its support of educational innovations and lent its support in 2007. The foundation—started by Broadcom Corp. cofounder Henry Samueli (see related story, page 1)—sponsored the creation of Science@OC’s first instructional materials, as well as training for teachers to use them.
Each unit of instruction is developed by the Smithsonian Institute and contains a set of experiments designed to engage students, Neuen said.
The experiments get the kids out of the classroom and into hands-on, “curiosity-based” learning, because, Neuen points out, while it’s great to read about a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, it’s even better to see it happen.
Science@OC initially approached schools in the Santa Ana Unified School District because a number of campuses had among the lowest science scores in the county. The district also served a disproportionate number of low-income kids, with about 87% qualifying for a financial break on lunches. English was a second language for about 60% of the student population.
Science@OC started at several schools in Santa Ana in 2008, and by 2009, 43% of students passed the eighth-grade California STAR Test in science, a jump of nearly 20% in 18 months.
Companies Take Notice
Southern California Edison joined Science@OC’s efforts in 2009, providing funding and volunteers to work with teachers and students. Boeing Co., the Allergan Foundation, Fluor Foundation, and Nutrilite-Amway soon followed.
The companies, plus Broadcom, Time Warner Cable, Western Digital Corp. and many others, were drawn to Science@OC’s mission in hopes that a solid foundation in STEM—science, technology, engineering and math—will with time help create a future Orange County-based workforce proficient in the STEM disciplines.
Eric Eichinger, manager of the Analytical Chemistry Lab at Boeing, sits on Science@OC’s advisory board. He said that over the three years he’s been involved, he’s had the opportunity to talk with many Science@OC students.
“One of my favorite interactions was with a middle school student who knew everything—and I mean everything—about Boeing. As much as I do, and I’ve been here 29 years!” he joked.
Boeing has contributed $100,000 over the past three years to support Science@OC.
“Much of this is employee contributions they make through their paycheck.”
Girls’ Interest
Jahnavi Lokre, a member of the organization’s advisory board since 2014, is a passionate supporter for another reason: She loves that it encourages girls’ interest in science.
The vice president of operations for Irvine-based Sparton Inc., which designs and manufacturers electromechanical devices, said that women are underrepresented in STEM fields. Science@OC is helping to change that.
Lokre also pointed out that the students learn all of the aspects of project management.
“They must complete their work in a timely fashion, they must set goals, they work in teams, they have to manage outcomes. All of this is vital—not just now but in the future.”
Science@OC also draws supporters with no direct connection to STEM fields.
Damon Mircheff is a business litigation attorney with Rutan and Tucker LLP.
“I always loved science as a kid,” he said. “If science had been taught to me in a different way, I might have pursued it as a career.”
Mircheff, a member of the organization’s advisory board, has seen firsthand the impact of inquiry-based science experiments—instruction that encourages students to ask questions rather than simply absorb information.
“In one experiment, kids were given casts of two sets of dinosaur prints. They had to determine what was going on at the exact moment the prints were made millions of years ago,” he said. “From the depth of the prints, the way they were spaced, and other things, the kids determined that a small dinosaur was being chased by a much larger one, and got caught.”
He added, “It was fascinating to see how the kids reacted when they came to this conclusion. So excited.”
Working Toward a Solution
Neuen, a Wisconsin native, served as a public school administrator in that state before taking on the role of director of the Einstein Project, a Green Bay-based nonprofit group that provides hands-on, inquiry-based science instruction to local schools. She moved to Orange County in 2002 and began working with the Orange County Community Foundation, which was looking for ways to make the greatest possible impact on education.
The foundation conducted consultations with more than 100 educators, professionals, and community leaders and determined that OC’s most pressing educational need was to improve the way science was taught to students.
The finding formed the basis for Science@OC, and Neuen was tapped to lead it.
“I was excited to apply my experience with the Einstein Project to this wonderful new project,” she said.
Science@OC now serves 19 middle schools throughout the county, including in Tustin, San Juan Capistrano, La Habra and Yorba Linda. It still works with the Santa Ana and Buena Park school districts, which are the most heavily invested in the program. Neuen estimated that 40,000 students have been part of Science@OC since it started.
Science@OC has expanded from providing instructional materials and teacher training to providing students and teachers with the opportunity to visit STEM-focused companies.
Lessons for a Lifetime
The students embrace the lessons taught through the Science@OC units, Flores said.
The chair-and-string experiment is just one example: Students were instructed to determine the relationship between motion and energy with the goal of determining the number of turns of a rubber band required to move a propeller a certain distance along a length of string.
“I added a little ‘reality’ with the challenge,” said Flores, who was recently named Santiago Elementary School’s 2015 Teacher of the Year. “I told them that an amusement park is developing a new trolley ride and would like it to be powered by a propeller. You’ve been hired to determine the ideal number of propeller spins required to get the trolley safely across a 100 centimeter distance.”
The students prepared a written report and presented their findings to the “amusement park management”—aka, their classmates.
“The kids are inspired to look at the big picture,” Flores said.
Science@OC’s programs have a long-lasting effect, whether students eventually end up in STEM careers or not, Neuen said.
“There is technology in everything nowadays,” she said. “We need informed citizens. What the kids learn through Science@OC will help prepare them for the 21st century.”
