Youth Worker Science Club Training
Science Club is an exciting Cell Explorers programme in which young people in their youth groups engage in hands-on experiments over the course of several weeks as part of the GROWS project (more information on GROWS here), which is project managed by Dr. Kristin Anderson. Science Club activities are delivered by Sarah-Beth Bradley and other members of the CE team. We've seen tremendous success in the clubs we have run locally, with so many young people developing confidence and learning how fun science can be! Our next goal: delivering the Science Club nationally!
On Friday 28th June, Cell Explorers hosted 14 youth group leaders from Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Cork, and Longford for a 1-day training programme so they can deliver our Cell Explorers Science Club to the young people in youth groups across the country.
During the morning, attendees were given an introduction to Cell Explorers and the Science Club itself before getting into each of the 8 fun and easy experiments contained in the Science Club kit. They did everything from making balloon rockets, to learning how a cake rises; and had a lot of fun along the way!
Our summer scholarship student Emily Plant also talked everyone through the Youth Group Leader training module she developed as part of her final year project, which guides the user through the entire Science Club programme.
After lunch, the youth group leaders ran our Fantastic DNA in a Box experiment and extracted DNA from a banana, then discussed how to run the experiment with young people using CE resources.
Once the hands-on experiments were all done, there was lots of great discussion on the youth group leaders' plans to run the club, how they felt about delivering the sessions themselves, and what kinds of barriers we could help to address. Youth group leader Chandra Healy shared her experiences and tips for the Science Club sessions after running the programme herself last year.
Each attendee left with both a Fantastic DNA in a Box kit, and a Science Club experiments box to run the club over the coming months.
Many thanks to all the attendees for taking part and giving us so much valuable feedback. Special thanks to Megan Depinna for all her help with the organisation and planning of this event, and Chandra Healy for sharing her experience running the CE Science Club in her youth group, as well as her feedback on the Science Club format and box layout. Thanks also to Emily Plant for all her hard work on the Youth Group Leader training module.
We are looking forward to running our next Youth Group Leader training in September!
Science Club Development and dissemination:
The Cell Explorers Science club was developed by Dr Sarah Carroll at the university of Galway in collaboration with Megan Depinna & Rose Finnerty, from ForoÃge Galway, the National Youth Council Ireland STEAM programme 2021 and the Kinderbüro from the University of Vienna.
The development of the youth group leader science club training is part of the GROWS project done in collaboration with Megan Depinna from ForoÃge.
A note about the funders:
The development of the Cell Explorers Science Club was supported by Science Foundation Ireland, discover Award SFI20DP5071.
The dissemination of the Science Club and the development of the youth group leader training is supported by the Galway University Foundation / Medtronic Foundation Grant Award 2022-1115, under the Giving Real Opportunities to Widen Participation in STEM (GROWS) project.
About Medtronic Foundation:
The Medtronic Foundation partners to improve lives for under-served and underrepresented populations worldwide, and support communities where Medtronic employees live and give. For more information, please
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