Let's Talk Science at University of Windsor

We had to say goodbye and thank you to another outgoing coordinator recently. Victoria Kotevski was a volunteer and VEC member before joining our coordinator team in Spring 2020 when we were in the process of pivoting to online outreach. What a time to start! Vic's creativity and flexibility were key in helping our site continue to deliver outreach to youth, whether they were learning from home or their classroom. Vic has completed her undergrad degree in Biological Sciences. Congratulations Vic!

Now that the winter semester is over, it's time for us to say goodbye and thank you to some outgoing coordinators! First up is Victoria O'Beid, who has been a coordinator for the past five years as she completed her Biology and Education degrees. Victoria has worked with our educator partners to schedule all of our outreach visits and kept us all organized and on track, for which we are very grateful! She leaves us to begin her career as a science teacher, and we wish her all the best!

It is time to say thank you and good bye to another member of our coordinator team. Arpana has graduated from the Behaviour, Cognition, and Neuroscience program at UWindsor Science and is heading off to medical school! Arpana has been a valued member of Let's Talk Science Outreach at UWindsor since her first year, when she began volunteering with us. She soon became a member of our Volunteer Executive Committee, helping with events like our Let's Talk Science Challenge. She was so good at that she became a coordinator in Fall 2019. Arpana has been in charge of volunteer recruitment and training, planning events like our Let's Talk Environment and Let's Talk Cancer symposia, and keeping track of our site's activities on the volunteer portal. We are so grateful for Arpana's contributions to our site over the past four years and wish her the very best in medical school!

Timothy has been a superstar volunteer this year! He has done a fantastic job leading activities and sharing his enthusiasm for science with students during our virtual classroom visits. Thank you Timothy!

"I volunteer with Let’s Talk Science because I want to share the passion that I have for the sciences with students in a fun way!" Timothy, Outreach volunteer at the University of Windsor http://ow.ly/pcyB50Eu7VS

Happy 2021! We are so grateful for all of our outreach volunteers, past & present! We may not be able to gather for group photos like these right now, but we are still connected by our love of science, enthusiasm for outreach, and our blue t-shirts!

Thanks to everyone who joined us yesterday to read "Is This Panama?" and learn how birds and other animals get ready for the winter! We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Day 4 of Week is about to begin! Tune your class into:

⭐️ Let's Talk Science at Cape Breton University is reading “Muin and the Seven Bird Hunters; A Mi'kmaw Night Sky Story" by Lillian Marshall, Murdena Marshall, Prune Harris, and Cheryl Bartlett at 9am EDT! Follow along after the reading to learn how to build a star lantern.

🌎 Let's Talk Science at University of Windsor is reading "Is This Panama?” by Jan Thornhill at 1pm EDT. Learn about animals' migration and behaviour as the seasons change and explore ways that animals prepare for winter.

Registration is required: https://bit.ly/35G1OIb

Science Literacy Week

The Let's Talk Science Outreach at UWindsor coordinator team would like to say a final thank you to our wonderful coordinator Lysandra Naom, who ended her term on August 31! Lysandra first started volunteering with us in May 2017. Right away she stood out as a committed and creative volunteer, and we asked her to join our Volunteer Executive Committee (VEC) team in September 2017 as a Kit Maintenance Officer. In September 2018 she was promoted to VEC lead, providing support and guidance to the other VEC members. In May 2019, Lysandra began her role as Activity Management Coordinator where she developed new activities to fill gaps in our workshop offerings, established a strong VEC team, and developed documentation that will help keep us organized for years to come. We thank Lysandra for all of her efforts over the years, and wish her the best of luck as she begins her Masters in Civil and Electrical Engineering at UWindsor!

We're back! We've been busy making plans for virtual outreach this coming fall, so we've been quiet on social media. But we wanted to share our team intro video created for the virtual Let's Talk Science coordinator conference earlier this summer!

LTS UWindsor Coordinator Team Intro Video - Summer 2020 A fun video we created to introduce ourselves during the 2020 (Virtual) Let's Talk Science Coordinator Conference! Edited by Lysandra.

The Let's Talk Science at UWindsor team welcomes Victoria Kotevski as she takes on the role of Activity Management Coordinator! Victoria became involved with LTS UWindsor in September 2018 and quickly exceeded our expectations as a volunteer with her dedication and enthusiasm. After applying, she joined our VEC team as a Kit Maintenance Officer in April 2019, consistently bringing creative ideas, excellent training sessions, and remaining active on community visits. We welcome Victoria to the coordinator team and can't wait to see the great things she will develop!

The Let's Talk Science Outreach at UWindsor coordinator team would like to say a final thank you to our wonderful coordinator Julia Power as she ends her term! Julia began her LTS journey in May 2017, her motivation as a volunteer led to her quickly joining our VEC team in September 2017 as a Kit Maintenance Officer. Her creativity and hard work didn't go unnoticed and in September 2018 she was promoted as a Volunteer Executive Committee (VEC) lead providing support to the rest of the team. In May 2019, Julia began her role as Activity Management Coordinator where she focused on activity development for underrepresented STEM areas, established a strong VEC team, and developed documentation that can be used for the years to come. We thank Julia for her time with us and wish her the best of luck as she goes on to complete her Masters in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of Guelph!

As National Volunteer Week comes to a close, we want to acknowledge some of our superstar volunteers who have gone above and beyond this past semester! Kadila Adili and Jodie Al-Dandachi have developed several very creative and engaging hands-on activities for our partnership with the Glengarry Homework Club. Salma Al Ghazaly and Emma Getty did a fantastic job delivering math and coding activities to a group as part of the WE STEAM initiative. We are so lucky to work with them, and all of our volunteers at LTS UWindsor!

It is a busy semester already! From recruiting new volunteers during Welcome Week, to meeting up with our returning volunteers for refresher training sessions, to getting our workshop kits restocked and ready to bring to classrooms. We will be training new volunteers in the next few weeks and starting our classroom visits. We will also be at Open Streets Windsor, at the University Hub. Exciting things to come from our outreach site this year!