Tutor & Mentor Students in the Sciences at the School of the Future Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Posted by Garrett Lew in : Announcements, News, Volunteering , trackbackThe Draper Chemical Society is starting a program at the School of the Future with its science departments. Volunteers will visit the School of the Future weekly and mentor students working on their exhibition projects (described below) as well as tutor students who need additional help in the sciences. This is a perfect way to give back to the local community and foster interest in the sciences. Available time periods would be Tuesdays from 11:35AM-12:30PM and afternoons 3:15-4:15PM. As we are already partway into the semester, we ask that anyone interested in volunteering at the School of the Future apply by Monday, March 9th (see below).School of the Future is a small New York City public school serving students in grades 6 through 12. We have a diverse student population that comes from all five boroughs and from a wide range of socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. We are a full inclusion school which means that students with learning disabilities attend all regular classes and receive extra support from special education teachers who push in to the regular classes. Our classes consist of a heterogeneously skilled population because we believe that students who are at different skill levels make the class a richer and more diverse learning environment.The philosophy of the science department is that we want our students to be scientists rather than learn about science, so we have a very hands-on curriculum. Students are required to take four years of math and science beginning with Integrated science in 9th grade, Biology in 10th, Chemistry in 11th and Physics in 12th. In addition to regular classwork, our students complete exhibitions at the end of each year.Exhibitions are a year-long in-depth research assignment for which students write a thesis paper and orally defend their thesis in a presentation before a panel of students and teachers. We believe that students learn best when they are challenged to approach a problem through the lens of Habits of Mind: establishing their point of view, using evidence to support their thesis, making connections between content, demonstrating the significance of what they study, and considering alternatives to their thesis. For science exhibitions, students typically take a lab they have done in class and go beyond what was studied to create their own experiment that they conduct after school.School of the Future is located at 22nd Street and Lexington Avenue.If you are interested in this opportunity or have any questions, please e-mail our Community Service Chair, Erin, at Erin@drapersociety.org. Interested applicants should indicate which time periods they would be able to volunteer, as well as which science (biology, chemistry, physics)they would like to help in. In addition, please describe any past tutoring experience you may have. The deadline for applicants is Monday, March 9th.
Comments
Sorry comments are closed for this entry