Carleton FOCUS partners with Greenvale Park Community School to share science and build belonging

Curiosity, exploration, communication, partnership — all of these aspects of science were on full display at Greenvale Park Community School’s Science Night on April 30. An annual tradition, Science Night brings games, crafts, and interactive demonstrations of scientific concepts to elementary schoolers in Northfield. 

This year, Science Night was put on in collaboration with Carleton’s first-year FOCUS (Focusing On Cultivating Scientists) cohort. As a program that’s all about fostering support and belonging in the scientific community, FOCUS was well-equipped to support the goal of Science Night: making science exciting, hands-on, and community-oriented. 

The event began in 2017 as a collaboration between Associate Professor of Biology Rika Anderson ’06 and Northfield’s Greenvale Park Community School, with additional help from Carleton’s Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE). Two evenings a week, the Community School hosts programmed activities for students from elementary schools across Northfield, including arts and crafts, sports, and tutoring. One night a year, the evening becomes Science Night. 

“The idea is that my Carleton students work in partnership with the people who organize the Greenvale Community School to put together a night where students can learn about science in a way that makes them feel like science is exciting,” said Anderson, “and importantly, like they can be part of the scientific community and identify as a scientist.” 

Activities included baking soda and vinegar volcanoes, marshmallow catapults, and aluminum foil boats. “It was buzzing the whole night long,” said Anderson. 

Science Night is as valuable for the Carleton students who teach the activities as the elementary schoolers who learn from them. 

“What I hope for my students to get out of it is learning how to think on their feet,” said Anderson. “These are dynamic environments — kids are just running from table to table. How do you get their attention, engage with them for 5–10 minutes, and then what do you hope they walk away with? That takes an ability to meet each kid where they’re at.”

Anderson noted that Carleton students sometimes have initial apprehension about working with elementary schoolers. 

“If you’re a college student, unless you have younger siblings or cousins, you don’t usually interact with kids very much. When I was a college student, I had this idea that kids were chaos muppets,” she said. “But at these kinds of events, they’re really curious and they think college students are so cool.” 

“The kids and their parents were so kind and inviting,” said Opeyemi Adeyemi ’27, a member of FOCUS who participated in the event. “My biggest takeaway is the way you talk to the kids is everything, especially when it comes to how they perceive you. My favorite part was seeing their personalities and allowing them to have that creative freedom.” 

The event also gave students practice communicating scientific concepts to people from a variety of backgrounds, and working with community partners to develop plans that meet everyone’s needs. 

“A lot of it is about mutual respect,” said Anderson. “We work really carefully with the Greenvale organizers and say, ‘What do you want? How are you structuring your community school?’” 

In previous years, Science Night has operated in conjunction with students in Anderson’s seminar on the origin and evolution of early life. Last year, several students from FOCUS participated, and as Anderson didn’t teach the seminar this year, FOCUS’ first-year cohort stepped in to make the event happen. 

FOCUS is a curriculum-based program at Carleton that supports students who are historically underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Each year, two cohorts of 15 students attend regular colloquium meetings, work with a faculty adviser, receive mentoring from other FOCUS students, and engage in work study opportunities in the sciences.

As FOCUS has evolved since it began in 2007, community engagement has become increasingly ingrained into the program. Science Night is one of many projects that have sparked meaningful connections between Carleton students and the broader Northfield community. 

Deborah Gross, Charles “Jim” and Marjorie Kade Professor of the Sciences and director of FOCUS, said the community engagement and mentorship aspects of the program help create a tight-knit community and encourage persistence in the sciences. 

“One of the ways to support people’s interest in continuing to do something that’s hard is to remind them that they know what they’re doing,” said Gross, “and what’s best is if you have the opportunity to experience it by working in the community and using your knowledge to do something. So we’ve had a really strong interest in various kinds of community engagement as an opportunity for students to use their knowledge to do things that matter to them in a variety of different contexts.”

Past projects have included measuring air quality at school bus stops, surveying light pollution around town, and working with the Sustainability Office, CCCE, and Carleton Bookstore to examine plastic bag use. This year, a group is developing a website that will help Carleton’s dining services partner, Bon Appétit, track food waste. 

“There’s a long history of different kinds of projects,” said Gross. “I think the community engagement is the motivating factor. Usually the reason people are excited is that there’s someone who needs it, for whom it’s beneficial.” 

Next year, Science Night will become the sophomore colloquium project for the same group of FOCUS students who attended the event this year. Students will collaborate with Greenvale Park Community School to develop their own projects for the event. 

“They’ll have the benefit of hindsight,” said Anderson. “They’ll know what worked and what didn’t and how to adapt accordingly.”

With future collaboration already in the works, Science Night will continue to foster excitement and scientific community for everyone involved. “I’m looking forward to the event next year,” said Adeyemi.