Our plan
My lab (http://bioteach.ubc.ca) is a science literacy facility with a keen interest in looking at unconventional ways of "talking science." Not necessarily in terms of technical concepts (although we do that too), but more from a cultural angle. As in scientists are real people too, as in the scientific method is just so, which makes it both wonderful to use to explore the world, but also subjects it to many a problems in the realms of literacy, communication, and media. In any event, I had the good fortune to visit 826Valencia and witness first hand the lovely ways they worked with kids on creative writing projects. In fact, one of the fieldtrips I saw, resulted in a story with elements of the environment, as well as prosthetics. Go figure, subjects with a heavy scientific influence. So that got my head thinking: science exploration and creative writing, together?
What we did
This actually wasn't such a strange concept to my lab. For a number of years, we had been hosting a website that specifically tried to draw in both literary and scientific crowds (The Science Creative Quarterly), and because it happens to be quite popular, we knew that, in principle, such a partnership was not so surreal. Still, within a purely educational context, we weren't so sure, but decided to initiate a pilot project entailing 10 fieldtrip sessions, done with the specific intent to troubleshoot the program and cull feedback from both the participating teacher and students. Here, my lab procured the necessary funding for this and sought out partnerships with our institution's creative writing program (in order to recruit MFAs) as well as members from the Let's Talk Science organization, which has an excellent record in working with science graduate students for outreach purposes. With this framework, we quickly recruited 5 science grad students from a variety of fields, and 5 MFA students with particular interests (fiction, poetry, screenplay writing). Then, we randomly paired them up (a science grad with a MFA), and endowed them with the responsibility of designing a 4 hour fieldtrip template, whereby the participating kids would be guided through science experiments (all within the context of fully enabled research facility), and immersed in an exercise in reflective expository writing. In May of 2008 we released the dates for the pilot session, with full logistics laid out (topics, grade 5 to 7 target audience, etc), and then actually held the sessions to a total attendance of about 200 elementary school students.
Our results
From the teacher and student feedback, as well as online discussion (we published many of the pieces written during the pilot session at the SCQ), we knew we had a good thing going. As a result, we have made steps to have sustainable funding for this program, and it is now a staple fieldtrip opportunity at our facility. During the 08-09 school year, we were able to host 32 sessions (about 600 kids in all) ranging in scientific topics from fuel cells, genetics, astrogeology, biodiversity, climate change, to literary modes such as poetry, screenplays, flash fiction, letter writing. As well, there is interest to expand the program to other creative outlets. We have recently finished a 4 session pilot of combining biodiversity science with visual art, and are now in discussions to see if this program can also be expanded. In all, it has been a great experience, and I hope, good for all involved. It provides UBC with an opportunity to extend itself to the community at large, it provides all particpants to realize that sometimes the processes involved in science and art are not so different after all, and it provides a great opportunity to experience different academic perspectives in one setting. (students' works can be viewed at http://www.scq.ubc.ca/category/symposia-works/) cheers dave ng
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