Students helping students build their interest in science

McMaster science students will host 170 of their high school counterparts on Friday, in an effort to demonstrate the rewards of continuing their education in the sciences.

Let's Talk Science, a national charitable organization with 2,600 volunteers across Canada (including 200 McMaster students) is planning to welcome Grade 9 and 10 students to the University from local secondary schools that include St. Mary's, Westdale, Barton and Cardinal Newman.

The visitors will gather in the Burke Science Building to take part in four selections from a menu of nine workshops, with such intriguing titles as The Truth Behind Sports Drinks, Zombie Attack!, and The Science of Superheroes – all drawn from the portrayal of science in the popular media, and meant to be entertaining and substantial at the same time. The students will also hear from science journalist Pippa Wysong.

The day is free for participants, and has been entirely organized by about 30 student volunteers who are all part of the Let's Talk Science contingent at McMaster, explained Megan Dodd, who is one of two coordinators of the McMaster program, along with Fran Lasowsky. Both are PhD candidates in biomedical engineering.

Dodd says that the event is meant to kindle interest in science in younger students before they make decisions about what courses to take in their upper years of high school.

“We're hoping to make science more relatable by showing them the science involved in all parts of our life, including movies and TV shows they are interested in,” she says.

“We're introducing them to students who are actually researching things they're interested in, so they can see that they can actually study them.”