BY RAHUL NACHNANI | COMMUNITY OUTREACH CHAIR | SALTMAN QUARTERLY 2014-15
As the Community Outreach Chair, I am in charge of communicating Saltman Quarterly’s passion for science to the community through service projects. My committee and I will work with other on-campus and off-campus organizations in order to achieve a more prominent presence in the San Diego community. We aim to engage K-12 students in various biological and scientific activities throughout the year, as well as involve UCSD students in the outreach to these communities.
So far, we have three planned events for the 2014-2015 school year, each with varying target communities and purposes.
FALL QUARTER
SQ Essay Contest
With this contest, we would like to give students at different high schools around San Diego the opportunity to have an essay published in one of our SQ Insider publications.
The essay will be a one-page statement on a student’s dream for his or her future and how he or she plans to use biology to follow this dream. The tentative prompt is as follows:
“Biology is a subject which is intimately tied to other fields of study. There is enormous room for growth, exploration, and discovery in this field that can change the way we sustain life, cure disease, and protect our natural resources. Write a one page statement of what you dream of doing in the future and how you can apply the broad field of biology to your career. Topics include but are not limited to: conservation, medicine, research, public health management, law school, writing, and art.”
The timeline for the essay contest is still tentative, but we hope to have the students essays evaluated by not only our own SQ staff but also hand-picked by some faculty members in the Division of Biology! Then, once the winning essay is chosen, the student and the essay will be featured in the Winter Quarter SQ Insider.
The winning student will be able to include this outstanding achievement on job, scholarship, and college applications. He or she will also receive a copy of the publication including their essay as well as a medal from the Division of Biology at UC San Diego. With this essay contest, we hope to inspire students to consider careers in science.
WINTER QUARTER
Nutrition Games!
Winter quarter is our chance to engage elementary and middle school students! Dr. Paul Saltman was our inspiration for Saltman Quarterly, and he was a professor of Biology teaching nutrition here at UCSD. In order to honor him and his legacy, we decided that we would like to engage the younger generation with a set of activities called Nutrition Games! The “curriculum” will be set by UCSD students and faculty who are tied with the Nutrition course on campus, and will help us gear the event for younger children. We hope to give these students not only a fun way to learn about nutrition and health, but also a taste of what a career in Biology would sound like and the types of information that they would learn!
SPRING QUARTER
Making Science Fun!
Saltman Quarterly’s Community Outreach committee wants to reach out to a younger crowd to get students inspired and excited about science! In Spring Quarter, we plan on going to elementary and middle schools and teaching them a simple yet interactive science lesson through hands-on experimenting. We are still thinking of ideas for the experiment so if you have any ideas, please apply to be a part of the Community Outreach committee!
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That’s the plan for Community Outreach so far! More updates to events will be posted as the year progresses.