Allegheny College Hosts Hands-On Science Workshop for Area Fourth Graders

For the third year, Allegheny College, in conjunction with the Crawford Central School District and Partners in Education, is hosting the Fourth Graders as Scientists event (formerly called the Fourth Grade Science Symposium) on Tuesday, March 17, Thursday, March 19, and Friday, March 20, on the College’s campus.

During the event, fourth graders from all five Crawford Central elementary schools will be on campus to get hands-on experience with a variety of science topics to help them prepare for the science portion of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSAs), which the students will take in the spring. 

Allegheny professors, staff and students, as well as volunteers from outside the College, will present various science workshops to students. Topics range from agriculture & seeds, astronomy, circuits & electricity and the water cycle to forces & fiction, the rock cycle, animal adaptations, recycling, aquatic invertebrates & ecosystems and bird migration & habitats.

“This program allows students to be exposed to a wide variety of science-related lessons in a setting outside the classroom,” says Lisa Whitenack, assistant professor of biology.

“One of the goals is to get kids at a very young age interested in science,” adds Wendy Kedzierski, director of Creek Connections, a partnership between the College and K-12 schools that focuses on hands-on watershed education. “These hands-on activities really bring science alive for them. We want to keep that momentum going.”