Here is the text of one of Perry's very helpful emails which answers some frequently asked questions from a parent at a potential volunteer site:
What is the target student group? Any and all? Low income? Advanced? Struggling? What grades? All together or split by grades?
At beam, we try to target schools with students who are typically at a socioeconomic disadvantage when compared with their peers. Often, these students don't have a strong constructive environment at home to encourage their educational pursuits, so we try to provide a positive space each week for all students to explore their natural curiosities. We hope that this will eventually foster a lifetime commitment to learning. However, beam is open to any and all students - we have many bright students as well as some who struggle; we teach kids from both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. The mission of beam is to try and level the playing field for all students.
We work with both elementary and middle schools primarily. Our group is also associated with another group that does work in a biotech ROP class at Berkeley High School, but our body of curriculum focuses on grades 3-8.
Is Friday afternoon the only available time or are we flexible to find another time that works? (I'm not saying that time doesn't work, just is there any flexibility).
We currently teach at most of our schools on Friday, but we also teach at one on Monday, and another on Wednesday. Friday is by no means the only tie we are available, but it is dependent on the facilitators' class schedules, which change from semester to semester. Keep in touch to try and coordinate a day that will work best with us. Typically, one of the facilitators will be in charge of all the volunteers at a particular school, and travel to that school with those volunteers every week. So, at least one of the facilitators must have a schedule that works with LeConte's requested time for beam activities.
Are there any costs?
There is no cost for materials charged to the school. We are supported each semester with a stipend from the Department of Chemical Engineering to cover all material and transportation costs for our volunteers.
What is the curriculum covered? Physical sciences? Basic engineering concepts? Math?
Our curriculum tries to cover the wide range of engineering disciplines offered at Cal (mechanical, chemical, civil, electrical, materials and bioengineering). Sorry, we haven't developed any nuclear engineering activities yet! We are still young, and next fall will only be our third semester of operation. However, each summer and winter break, all of our facilitators are hard at work to develop new curriculum to fill in the gaps from the activities of previous semesters.
Since our audience is composed of elementary and middle school students, we try to take elements of these engineering disciplines and apply it to students' lives in order to make the subject matter accessible to their age level. Some activities have design elements, others focus on basic principles of physics, and still others try to expose our students to common engineering models. For a full sample of our curriculum over the past two semesters, feel free to check out all of our lesson plans at http://beam.berkeley.edu/decal.html
Hope this helps, and feel free to let us know if you have any further questions. We look forward to working with you!
Thanks,
Perry Johnson, Facilitator
ME '09
