Thank you so much to all of our donors for your generous donations to our WOW BuckeyeFunder campaign! You all made this campaign a huge success. From this financial support, we will continue to create, quality kits for Columbus City elementary school students and teachers. Thank you!!  

With CAS' matching donation, we were able to reach our goal of $2,500! Currently we are in the purchasing process and will be constructing the kits soon. Your donation will be used directly for these purchases. 

Just yesterday we had a lot of packages delivered that ended up being stacked taller than our WOW Programs Coordinator. :) 

Thank you for making a difference to our program and continue to follow us on social media to find out more about these kits! 

We are thankful for our WOW partners Battelle and CAS and their employees who volunteer with our programs, even helping virtually during the pandemic too! We want to introduce you to three of our partner volunteers below. 

Meet Rachel Thurston, Senior Materials Scientist at Battelle 
Rachel has been volunteering with WOW since 2014. Her favorite part of WOW is seeing that lightbulb moment, when a student suddenly gets a concept or makes a connection. She loves how you can see it on their faces.  Rachel chooses to volunteer and support WOW because "as a scientist, I want to encourage the next generation of scientists. I also understand that science education is important even for people who will not become scientists because it is the key to understanding the world around us".  When asked why a potential donor should donate to WOW, she said "the WOW program has a tangible impact on the students in the schools it supports. These students are naturally curious, and WOW allows students to discover the world of science hands-on". 

Meet Elizabeth Altizer, Product Manager at CAS
Elizabeth has been volunteering with WOW since 2018 and has recently helped with two WOW Virtual Meet & Greets at one of the elementary schools we work with. Elizabeth loves the opportunity to make science accessible to a younger audience. She really got interested in science when I was in middle school, and I didn’t have much exposure to it in elementary school. Elizabeth loves building the foundation for understanding and appreciation for basic principles of science at a younger age, with fun experiments. She thinks it is important to volunteer and support WOW to "show young students that scientists come in all shapes and sizes, and that we exist in the same community. We’re not squirreled away in some remote lab in a hard to reach place – we’re right here in Columbus, and a job in the sciences can take many forms. I also personally find a lot of joy in showing kids that girls can do science too". 

Meet Dr. Anna Merkle, Manager of Scientific Information at CAS
Dr. Merkle has been volunteering with WOW for about 3-4 years now while working at CAS. She thinks you should consider donating to our WOW BuckeyeFunder because "showing children how science is something they see every day is truly a wonderful act. The curiosity these kids have is astronomical. We can help grow their curiosity and confidence by having these wonderful programs for kids to participate in!" Her favorite thing about WOW is that she can enjoy helping students get excited about science. Dr. Merkle continues and says "[The elementary school students] get to see a “real” person whose career are science focused and would call themselves a scientist.  I enjoy breaking down my job into something a child can understand, relate to, and hopefully aspire for! I remember in elementary school someone coming into a class and showing me a Geiger counter. It was the coolest thing. I hope I will have a slight impact on someone thinking that they can be a scientist because they see and hear from real ones!" 

The WOW program shares two partners, Battelle and CAS, with another local nonprofit, The PAST Foundation. Both WOW and The PAST Foundation are similar organizations striving for the same goal: to encourage the growth of STEM exploration for all! 

The PAST Foundation is a nonprofit that was founded in 2000. It was created to bring scientific research to classrooms. The program also brings anthropology, science, and technology together to answer “How can we connect real-world scientific research with classrooms and the public?” Their goal is to improve how education happens in our communities. They value teachers and the difference they make in the lives of students, so they make it their goal to improve the lives of students and teachers. 

The WOW program was asked to join the conversation with The PAST Foundation’s Learning Unboxed Podcast back in August. In our podcast episode, WOW Programs Coordinator Jessica and two WOW program students, Brianna and Grace, have a conversation with The PAST Foundation’s founder and CEO Dr. Annalies Corbin about our new WOW Forensic Science Unit that was created last year during the pandemic. This unit will be implemented soon as we are currently building the kits with funds raised from this BuckeyeFunder!

Listen to the podcast at https://www.pastfoundation.org/122-teaching-forensic-science-in-elementary-school (episode #122) or watch/listen to the YouTube video of the episode embedded below. 

Thank you to The PAST Foundation and Dr. Corbin for this opportunity to feature the WOW program and to talk more about sparking an interest in science to elementary school students!

We only have a week and a day left of our BuckeyeFunder campaign! 

Because we have 8 donations so far, here are 8 facts about the WOW program:

1) The WOW program has been impacting and getting elementary school students excited about science since 1999. We are celebrating our 21st year in the community! 

2) The WOW program works with 3 Columbus City elementary schools at a time, adopting each school for 3 years.

3) The majority of the WOW scholars who participate in and make our programs possible are Choose Ohio First (COF) scholarship recipients of the Ohio House of Science and Engineering majoring in a variety of science and engineering majors at OSU. 

4) The WOW program is a service outreach option for the Honors & Scholars STEM Exploration and Engagement scholars program. 

5) In addition to the numerous science and engineering students from The Ohio State University, the WOW Program has affiliates with local science organizations, Battelle and Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS). These partners help to volunteer in the classrooms and make it so elementary school students are able to talk with and learn from a local scientist or engineer. 

6) The WOW program has up to 15 units that focus on a variety of science topics. Each unit has 5-10 hands-on experiments focused on the unit topic. With our campaign, we hope to create science supply kits with materials from these unit experiments so that our graduated schools can replicate WOW programs for years to come. 

7) With the kits we are creating thanks to donations raised with this fundraiser, we will be creating 10 kits in total. Six kits focused on the Scientific Method unit, and four kits focused on the Forensic Science unit. 

8) During the start of the pandemic, the WOW program created WOW at Home activities to give students access to fun science experiments to keep them engaged at home. These hands-on experiments are for all ages and use materials commonly found around the house. To get a glimpse at these experiments, visit our website at WOW at Home | Wonders of our World.

We are at 40% raised towards our goal! Will we be able to reach it before our fundraiser ends on November 30th? Be sure to continue to spread the word. Want t know how many days are left for our BuckeyeFunder? Check out this quick YouTube video for it to be revealed in our WOW Fingerprint activity! 

Students may have an idea about why things sink or float. They may notice that a boat floats on water while a rock sinks to the bottom, but they might not understand the scientific reason why. One of our WOW Scientific Method Unit experiments kits will focus on the concept of sinking or floating. This fun hands-on experiment will teach students about why scientifically things sink or float. Afterwards, they will be able to understand and explain the concepts of density and weight. 

Above is a photo of our kit supply contents. The supplies here include:
Container for water
Sponges

Rubber duck

Pencils

Marbles

Legos

Pennies

Golf ball

Plastic spoon

Eraser

Paperclips 

Ball of aluminum foil

All the contents in this kit can be found around the house or picked up from a local store. We wanted to make this experiment applicable with everyday objects that students would see in their house or at school to show them that science is all around them. These are items that are used in everyday life and some unique items that they might occasionally see or use. That is what is great about this experiment, the resources are easily obtainable and can be purchased for less than $10! 

Science does not have to be expensive to have fun and learn! With your donation, you can help us purchase these affordable supplies to make several kits focused on this experiment and more. 

Below is a small sneak peek clip of our video instruction with Caleb, one of our WOW Scholars.