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Educational Outreach
SeeS
The Sooner Elementary Engineering and Science: SeeS is a voluntary, after-school learning experience that is open
to all children at an elementary site, pre-kindergarten through 5th grade. Hands-on, inquiry based experiments aimed at
teaching 3 to 4 words or key concepts are presented each month. Each month’s activities focus on a specific topic; some
topics will be continued for multiple sessions, with some “flashback” activities to reinforce the earlier lessons. The
activities span the physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering.
Curricula presented to date include the areas of
aeronautics, weather, environment, logic, static and DC electricity, and multiple other topics from chemistry and physics.
During a meeting, the students are offered multiple stations where different yet related experiments can be performed under
the supervision of university student volunteers. The elementary students leave each month with a summary of the topics
taught in addition to a list of resources that their parents can obtain from local educational stores. Faculty and students
from the OU Colleges of Engineering and of Arts and Sciences and occasionally parent volunteers from the individual schools
staff the program.
In addition to C-SPIN, financial support has been provided by the elementary schools’ PTAs, the Norman
School District Foundation, and the Oklahoma State Society of Professional. Besides C-SPIN financial support for the
program, Dr. Susan Walden, the C-SPIN OU educational outreach coordinator, is one of the administrators for SeeS. Through
the support and encouragement of C-SPIN, the Society of Physics Students (SPS) has adopted one elementary school this year.
Additionally, Dr. Walden is adapting curriculum compiled or developed by the C-SPIN high school and middle school RET
fellows to the elementary, informal science environment. These new SeeS modules will be used in other schools by SeeS
volunteers as well as be available on-line for parents or teachers at other schools.
For more information on the SeeS project, visit the official SeeS webpage at www.coe.ou.edu/sees
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