Science synergy — Student mentoring enhances love of science

ALPINE — Students in a recent science class at Westfield Elementary were required to figure out the workings of a humdinger, a shoebox-size simple machine that hummed with a motor and dinged with a bell.

The machine also contained a battery, circuit and lever. To activate the machine and create the humming and dinging noises, students had to assemble the humdinger.

The students were sixth-graders who built the humdingers with their third-grade friends, part of a new science mentoring program initiated by sixth-grade teacher Karre Nevarez.

Nevarez's idea for the program has won her recognition with the Alpine School District and grants — $2,000 from ING Financial Services and $5,000 from the National Education Association Foundation. Nevarez will use the money on science supplies.

When students enter sixth grade, Nevarez found most either mildly like or hate science, feelings she suspects were born in previous grades.

Nevarez hopes the mentoring program will make science interesting to younger students, planting a seed she wants to bloom by the time she gets them in sixth grade. She wants her current sixth-graders to have fun, too.

"We try to get as much hands-on science as we can," she said.

Other benefits accompany the mentoring program, Nevarez said. Students enhance social and communication skills.

"I like them working with third-graders because they have to explain it," Nevarez said. "The third-graders ask great questions."

Kate Williams, a sixth-grader, enjoys working with the younger students. "I like teaching people," she said.

Nevarez chose third-graders for the mentoring project because their Utah science core curriculum is similar to that for sixth grade.

In the third grade, students are expected to learn about living and nonliving things, the earth, moon and sun, and heat and sound. In the sixth grade, students are expected to learn about micro-organisms, phases of the moon, and light, heat and sound.

"Sixth grade has the same type of state core, just more complicated," said Nevarez, who volunteers to evaluate science curriculum and read science questions for state standardized tests.

Each of Nevarez's split-session classes mentors third-graders for an hour a week. Nevarez teaches science to her students daily.