Demos is dedicated to educating local elementary students in the basic sciences while showing that science is both fun and accessible. We offer three separate programs.

Weekly Classroom Program

The weekly classroom program is an interactive learning laboratory, designed to engage students in hands-on activities. By promoting this sort of experimentation and guiding in-class discussions, Demos volunteers work to spark students’ interest in science and help them through the basic principles that underlie our experiments. Volunteers spend an hour a week teaching in a New Haven elementary classroom, giving them a chance to develop a working rapport with their students.

The curriculum is designed foremost to be interactive and to cover a variety of subject areas. It is not intended to be complete or comprehensive by any means, rather we design our curriculum with the purpose of giving students opportunities for exploration and experimentation that they might not have in the standard New Haven curriculum. We ensure that each of our hour-long modules meets Connecticut curriculum standards for grades 2-6.

Assemblies

Demos Assemblies presents 45-minute assemblies to gymnasiums full of elementary school students. We use everything from liquid nitrogen, dry ice and some pretty crazy chemicals to frozen bananas, flowers and diapers in our thrilling show. The subject of the show is “States of Matter and Chemical Reactions”, and the presentation is designed to be interactive and educational. Loved by students and teachers alike, it’s a time-tested show that has been running successfully for more than 6 years across Illinois and Connecticut. Physics Nobel laureate Leon Lederman called it “proof that learning science is fabulous fun!” Our program is well suited for students in all grades K-5. (The assembly covers material in the Connecticut science curriculum standards for grades 2-3.)

Most importantly, however, students learn that anyone can be a scientist: whenever you wonder about stuff, you’re doing science. For more information, contact: Anika Binner and Nicole Tsai.

StarLab

Teach kids about astronomy with the Starlab Planetarium! You and a partner will visit New Haven elementary schools with a blow-up planetarium inside which you will teach students about constellations, Greek mythology, planets, comets, star formations, and more to deepen the students’ understanding of our universe. The igloo-shaped planetarium inflates to a height of almost 11 feet and can accommodate some twenty kids plus you and the state-of-the-art night sky projector.

All levels of expertise are welcome. For more information, contact David Minoli.