Cal State Long Beach students have an opportunity for hands-on learning while teaching at local elementary schools.
Students become teachers and earn course credit in a science program that integrates fun and learning for third-graders, according to Judith Brusslan, the professor heading the program.
Brusslan, a biological sciences professor at CSULB, recruits eight students every spring semester to teach science and conduct hands-on experiments in their own classrooms at nearby Longfellow and Burnett elementary schools.
“What I’m trying to do is teach [the third-grade students] that science is fun but also teach them that we do experiments to learn something,” Brusslan said.
CSULB students teach the children experiments that include making cameras, testing solutions to determine pH levels, extracting DNA from an onion, testing elasticity of rubber balls, a freeze point depression test involving Kool-Aid and one original experiment created by the CSULB student in the final week of the program.
“Teachers can’t always think of what labs or science activities to do,” said Allison Aruzman, a teacher at Burnett Elementary who was involved with the program last year. “In the regular classes, much of the time gets taken up with math and reading, and science does not always get touched as much as it should.”
Burnett Elementary has already signed on to repeat the program for another year after the impressive management skills and motivation CSULB students displayed last winter, Aruzman said.
“The CSULB students gain so much confidence,” Brusslan said. “Some of them don’t ever think that they could teach and they have such a great time.”
While most students are selected from the science department, the program is open to all majors as long as the student is interested in teaching and enjoys interacting with children, Brusslan said.
“I’ve had ‘A’ students not do well and ‘C’ students do great,” Brusslan said. “You have to have a basic understanding of science but you don’t have to be the premed A-plus student to do well.”
The program runs for seven weeks beginning each February at Longfellow Elementary School and participating CSULB students earn one course credit. Last year the program ran an extended five weeks at Burnett Elementary School, Brusslan said.