Kids can't get enough of Science Sunday
Written By: Shawn Benbow
2005-03-18
More than 350 elementary children took over the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Building March 6 for the sixth annual Science Sunday."One of the reasons we want to host Science Sunday is to provide kids with a fun and educational experience using the museums and collections on campus," said Jonathan Meakin, communications and outreach co-ordinator with Museums and Collections Services. "All of the activities we have here relate back to the research we're doing with the collections we have. Obviously we market it to kids aged 5-13, but we try to make it fun and educational at the same time."
Dr. Patricia Cavell, collections manager with the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, has been putting on Science Sunday since its inception. "We thought we would try it one year to see if there was any interest for people to come to the university," she said. "Over the last three years we've had people asking in advance when we were going to have this event, so it's really gained quite the reputation."
Cavell said people started lining up more than an hour before the event started. "There's a lot of enthusiasm … you can touch a dinosaur bone in a field cast, you can touch the oldest rock in the world," she said.
More than 700 children and parents were expected to attend. They made their way through 20 stations within the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Building and the Biological Sciences Building, taking part in a number of activities, from digging for fossils, sculpting dinosaurs from clay, and taking guided tours of the U of A's Paleontology and Mineralogy museums.
About 50 undergraduate and graduate students volunteered for the event, and University Parking Services provided free parking. "One of our most important funders is the Friends of the University of Alberta Museums," Meakin said. "They are a non-profit society that supports the university museums as a whole ... so any materials that we need to purchase, they do that for us."
For next year, Meakin says he's "always looking to bring more collections in. As long as they relate to the museums and collections we have at the U of A, we'll gladly bring them in."
This event was staged by the Department of Museums and Collections Services and the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences department to promote the breadth of collections the University of Alberta has to offer.
"You get a small child early on in a university environment, and it's important that they realize that they can be at the university," Meakin said. "Yes, this is down the road, but sowing that seed now is what's so important."
This article originally appeared in Folio News Story