A quality science education provides children with the tools they will need to succeed professionally and lead healthy lives. Student physicians and scientists at Columbia have enormous potential to help surrounding New York public schools motivate and inspire their students to succeed in the sciences.

The mission of this club is to help public school students from Northern Manhattan obtain an outstanding science education. We are currently recruiting Columbia grad students, med students and post-docs to mentor local in the setting of their science classroom as they complete their school science fair projects.

Description

The program runs for twelve weeks every spring semester, and consists of once-weekly, ninety-minute sessions where the mentors assist students directly in their science class.  Mentors are directed by the science teacher, and work towards the defined goal of helping students complete each stage of their school science fair project.  The program culminates in a school-wide science fair held at nearby City University , judged by volunteers from the Columbia scientific community.  Judging of the final science fair provides an additional opportunity for Columbia students who could not commit to weekly sessions to participate in the program on a one-time basis.   

History

Columbia Science Mentoring was established several years ago as collaboration between a Columbia M.D./Ph.D. student, Stu Weisberg, and a science teacher at Mott Hall, Susan Herzog.  For the last two years, between ten and fifteen medical and graduate students have participated as classroom mentors, and an additional 20 have served as science fair judges.