Let’s Talk Science training volunteers at Loyalist College

By Tamara Pilon

BELLEVILLE – Loyalist College is training volunteers to help students in the Quinte region get the jobs of the future.

Loyalist students are holding a training session called Let’s Talk Science to help other college students bring science, technology, engineering and mathematics to students from kindergarten to Grade 12 in the Quinte area.

The training session was originally scheduled for this past Wednesday, but is to be rescheduled because of bad weather that day. A new date has not yet been announced.

Let’s Talk Science is a program run by the federal government to engage elementary and high-school students in science and related subjects. Loyalist has a branch that is one of the oldest student-run groups. It does a number of activities on and off campus.

Natasha Mathieu, a Loyalist biotechnology student who is running the training session, said the goal is to get students to volunteer and prepare them for what they will be doing with Let’s Talk Science.

The group at Loyalist strive to get younger students interested in science with hands-on activities and lectures, she said.

“For example, yesterday I went to Prince of Wales (School in Belleville) and we did two sessions of fruit DNA extraction.”

The program, she said, is “mainly to get them interested and potentially get them into a career in the science, technology, engineering or math degree.”

They can get a job in any field that requires these programs, she added.

The Let’s Talk Science program is not only helpful in teaching younger students about these subjects, but it can also help the older student volunteers from the college, Mathieu said.

For instance, students in the early childhood education program could benefit from volunteering for Let’s Talk Science because they will be able to practise what they’ve learned in class by teaching children to be responsible and organized, she said. The program also allows the students to break out of their shells and be more outgoing, she added.

The volunteers behind Let’s Talk Science at Loyalist take part in the annual Quinte Regional Science and Technology Fair, which gives students in grades 4 to 12 the opportunity to do original scientific research or innovative projects that are displayed at various levels of competition.