through volunteerism
“I’m a born volunteer,” says Judy Elson, 1980 alumna of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences with degrees in botany and conservation of natural resources. That’s a simple self-assessment, but it actually refers to a multitude of volunteer endeavors.
Her efforts range from her own Master Gardener volunteering at the JC Raulston Arboretum and weaving-and-spinning demonstrations at the N.C. Museum of History to her responsibility for legions of scientists who volunteer in public schools.
Elson is program director of the Research Triangle Science and Mathematics Partnership, which provides programs and advice to teachers and schools in the Triangle, most notably the Scientist in the Classroom (SIC) program, which she oversees. Reaching out to schools in Wake, Chatham, Durham and Orange counties, the SIC program brings volunteers such as scientists, engineers, health professionals, mathematicians and science hobbyists into classrooms to share their expertise with students and teachers. They present hands-on activities and demonstrations or assist with experiments or science/mathematics festivals. The scientists are also available as science-fair judges.
Elson came to the SIC program after 11 years of work in air quality research at the Lake Wheeler Field Laboratory in a program that is a joint endeavor of the College’s departments of Plant Pathology, Botany and Crop Science and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There she worked with Dr. Denis Dubay, then with the Botany Department, studying the effects of air pollution on crops.
It was her association with Dubay that led to her work with SIC. “In 1989, Denis had a child in Wake County Schools, at Fred Old Elementary, and he sometimes volunteered in the school, doing plant demonstrations,” Elson says. “He noticed there was no organized way for teachers to get scientists into the classroom, so he wanted to organize it. I had started working part-time at the field lab at that point, so I told him I’d help in the afternoons. By 1991, he had taken a job with the state related to the program he had started.”
The SIC program got off the ground with help from a National Science Foundation grant, Elson says, “and during the course of that grant we had a director and several assistants.” However, the grant ended, and the program is now led by Elson and one other staff member, both of whom work part-time.
Theirs is an independent, non-profit organization, not part of the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS), “but there is WCPSS representation on our board, and they donated office space in one of their buildings,” Elson says.
From that office she directs a program that has grown to include a pool of more than 800 scientists, approximately 150 of whom are active in a given year. “We’ve worked with more than 2,000 teachers over the years, but in any given year we have about 400 making requests,” Elson says.
“ We recruited scientists who are interested in doing this and entered them into our database,” she says. “Scientists come primarily from N.C. State, with some from Duke, UNC-CH and Research Triangle Park.”
These include many faculty and staff from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Among them are Drs. Dennis Osborne, John Meyer, Dan Israel, Sylvia Blankenship, Chris Brown, Courtney Thornton, Jeannette Moore, Paul Fantz, Peggy Longmire, Jim Mickle, Steve Washburn, Blanche Haning and Kimberly Ange, along with zoology graduate students Jorie Favreau and Sunny Snider.
“ When this began developing, Denis Dubay met with eight teachers and two scientists and they wrote up a skeleton framework for 80 scientist-in-the-classroom activities,” says Elson. “And we still use those, with some modifications and updates as curricula change.”
The activity manual, complete with 100 activities and a summary, is available online at http://www.mindspring.com/~rtsmp/activity_list.htm.
The manual’s subject areas are: Earth Materials, Space, Weather, Plants, Animals and Human Biology, Ecology, Chemistry and Physics, Science as Inquiry, Science and Technology, Mathematics, and Food Science and Health. Each includes from four to 11 outlined classroom activities.
“ We match teacher requests to scientists, then the two will contact each other to develop or modify an activity to meet the needs of the class and to effectively utilize the individual scientist’s own experience and expertise,” Elson says.
She particularly emphasizes the impact of the volunteer scientists’ efforts. “Without their visits to the classrooms, kids might not make a connection between the book and the real world — the practical applications of the concepts,” she says. “One of the most important things we do with scientists is present role models of important people who take the time to work with students. It sets an example for the kids to follow when they grow up.”
And interestingly enough, she reveals, the activities have changed the lives of the volunteers: “We’ve had a couple of scientists who have left their businesses and gone into teaching. Denis Dubay is one of them. He’s now a third-year teacher at Leesville Road High School in environmental science.”
Elson also finds that her personal volunteering activities have enhanced her life, particularly as a Master Gardener.
“ I started in 1995,” she says. “I had been out of field research for a few years, and I missed the contact with other botanists. The Master Gardener program was a way for me to stay current. I have this interest in plants and ecology, and it’s a way to keep in touch with people with the same interests.”
Soon she hopes to help her fellow members of the CALS Alumni and Friends Society board to organize volunteer activities for College alumni. “We’re looking at ways CALS alumni can give back,” she says. “We’re also looking for ways we can work with Cooperative Extension and help them out.”
Meanwhile, she’s focused on keeping scientists available for presentations in Triangle classrooms. “SIC is supported by donations and gifts, and support can dwindle,” Elson says. “Right now our largest groups of supporters are PTAs. Sometimes, Wake County Schools will help with in-kind donations, such as office space, and in the last year or two, Progress Energy has been helpful.”
But even in lean times, Elson stays motivated. As she, again, simply but eloquently puts it, “I like helping to improve science education.”
— Terri Leith
