From left, pharmacology graduate students Regina Myers, Efrain Garcia, and Laurie Earls speak about the effects of smoking on the heart with first graders at Granbery Elementary School last week at the Cumberland Science Museum. (photos by Dana Johnson)
Vanderbilt graduate students partner
with museum to teach kids about science
Reese Lusk, left, Adam Hubler, and Bryan Walsh check out the “Sink the Tobacco Habit” exhibit at the Cumberland Science Museum. VUMC graduate students assisted with the exhibit.
Visitors to the Cumberland Science Museum may not notice the difference, but the museum’s staff educators sure do. Their days are a little less packed, thanks to the Vanderbilt graduate students who recently started teaching health and science topics to museum visitors.
“We are very thankful for these students,” said Janet Griffin, Programs Manager and Health Educator at the Cumberland Science Museum. “They have needed very little training to come in and teach, answer questions, and be the experts that they are.”
It is the first time that graduate students have taught at the museum, she said. The students are also participating in exhibit development.
The inspiration for graduate student involvement at the museum came during the preparation of a grant to support a new tobacco information exhibit. Griffin and Joey V. Barnett, Ph.D., associate professor of Pharmacology, Medicine and Microbiology & Immunology, applied for and received funding from the American Heart Association Southeast Affiliate to develop and construct an exhibit that will teach children the dangers of tobacco use.
“Dr. Bill Wadlington (clinical professor of Pediatrics) approached me with the idea for an exhibit,” said Barnett, who serves as president of the local AHA chapter. “An astonishing number of elementary school-age children have tried tobacco, and those who start smoking at an early age are most likely to continue smoking.”
Barnett’s goal as the local AHA president has been to educate children about the heart and heart disease. What better way to reach a young audience, he thought, than through an exhibit aimed at the nearly 80,000 school children who visit the Cumberland Science Museum each year.
The new exhibit, currently in production, “has great information for all ages to learn why tobacco use is bad,” Griffin said. In addition to providing hands-on information about the dangers of tobacco use, the exhibit will be in both English and Spanish — the first bilingual tobacco exhibit at the museum.
Efrain Garcia, one of three Pharmacology graduate students who initially volunteered for the project, has translated all of the exhibit information into Spanish. Garcia will be invaluable to efforts to develop more bilingual exhibits, Griffin said.
Garcia is excited about working with the museum and about his new teaching role. “The kids are really excited; they really get something out of the lessons,” he said. “Teaching them at a young age about the dangers of smoking may not stop them from smoking, but it will at least make them think about it.”
Garcia and his fellow second-year graduate students, Laurie Earls and Regina Myers, suggested recruiting more student volunteers through the Center for Teaching’s Future Faculty Preparation Program (F2P2). Ten students have been trained to teach at the museum, Griffin said, and additional students are always welcome. The museum teaches lessons on all sorts of science topics and welcomes graduate students from all scientific disciplines.
“The Cumberland Science Museum is a terrific community resource that teaches the general public about science, and they need our help,” Barnett said. “Our graduate students want opportunities to teach and to share their enthusiasm for science, and this is a great way to do it.
“From my perspective, it’s a perfect partnership.”
For more information or to volunteer, contact Janet Griffin at 401-5074 or jgriffin@csmisfun.com.