Promoting Science via an Equipment Loan Outreach Program

Abstract

An important component of many college and university science programs is that of community outreach. Some of the more typical kinds of outreach activities include teacher training workshops, public lectures, open house “science days,” and school demonstration visits. The latter activity usually consists of students and faculty transporting equipment from their institution to a local secondary school to provide “hands-on” demonstrations or activities to a few science classes. One problem with such visits is the short interaction time (usually an hour or so), which often comes and goes and is soon forgotten by the participating students. We discuss in this paper the specifics of an outreach program that has been successful in addressing this and other issues.

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