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BIO Links

The Molecular Biosciences Links to Teaching K-12 Outreach Program
  1. Home
  2. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
  3. Current Graduate Students
  4. Community Outreach
  5. Biolinks

About BIO Links

Launched in the spring of 2007, the BIO Links program provides School of Graduate Studies graduate students and Rutgers postdoctoral fellows the opportunity to volunteer their time in local public schools.  The program is a partnership between Rutgers graduate students and postdocs, and science teachers at local public schools.  Volunteers are paired with a science teacher from a local school and make a commitment to visit one class per week for nine weeks.  Some past volunteers have decided to continue visiting the classrooms well beyond the nine-week commitment.

What is the Role of a Volunteer?

Once paired with a science teacher, volunteers are expected to visit at least one class per week for nine weeks.  Volunteers enter the classroom with the goal of supporting the science teachers, while also helping to educate the local students about careers in science.  While in the classroom, graduate students and postdocs have the opportunity to enhance their communication skills by learning from successful members of the teaching community.  Specifically, volunteers may:

· Help students with laboratory assignments & lesson activities

· Work with students in understanding scientific concepts

· Make a presentation about their own research to the students

· Lead a discussion with public school students about college life and careers in science

· Bring teachers and students into university laboratories & allow them to witness, first-hand, scientific research at the graduate level

· Prepare class lectures and/or activities on topics being discussed in class

Current Schools:

· New Brunswick High School

· New Brunswick Middle School

For more information, please contact:

Dr. Martha Soto

sotomc@rutgers.edu

What are others saying about BIO Links?

Graduate Students:

  • “I definitely enjoyed the students and their amazement in this field of science that they had never been exposed to..... It actually made me excited once again about science.”
  • “I got to teach a lecture related to my field, as well as present my research to [the class].”
  • “I really recommend this experience to people interested in a teaching career.”
  • “I liked the interaction with the students the most. There were quite a few times when they would ask me questions that they seemed reluctant to ask the teacher.”

Teachers:

  • ”(The student volunteer) did not have to be asked twice to participate.   She also volunteered to assist and bring a presentation.”
  • ”The volunteers helped a lot during labs when a second pair of hands really helps.”
  • ”(The student volunteer) was charming, positive, respectful and eager to share her knowledge.”

Public school students:

What they learned from the BIO Links volunteers:

“It can take ten years to complete research.”

“That you can use fish to study cancer and find a cure.”

“That atoms are everything.”

 “How to explain and solve problems easier and faster.”

“That they spend a lot of time in the laboratory, not in a classroom.”

 

Why do people become scientists:

“To find out the secrets of everything.”

“To try to improve life, and the environment where we live.”