Fifth-grade student Robert Ibar stood at a table holding a steering wheel – a piece of a real race car.
Ibar smiled widely as he talked about the color scheme he submitted for UCLA Racing’s 2014 competition car. He designed his car with blue, gold and purple hues but not any red, since he is a UCLA fan.
On Monday, Ibar and about 100 fifth-grade students from two local elementary schools took a field trip to UCLA to participate in an interactive science event hosted by Interaxon, a student group that teaches neuroscience to elementary, middle and high school students in the Los Angeles area.
Race cars are not a typical part of Interaxon events. The group usually presents and teaches students about neuroscience, but Monday’s event incorporated other science disciplines, such as engineering and chemistry.
“We want to expose students to a field they wouldn’t have been exposed to otherwise,” said Akshay Ravi, a president of Interaxon and a fourth-year physiological science student. “We want to show them that college is a great place to study anything they want.”
Students from K. L. Carver Elementary School and Newcastle Elementary School participated in a diverse set of presentations in Ackerman Grand Ballroom, which included learning how race car gears work and feeling real human brains.
Ibar said the UCLA racing presentation was his favorite part of the day, but was also surprised by the texture and feel of a real human brain.
Terius James, a fifth-grade student from Carver Elementary, said he thought a presentation featuring a soda can implosion was the most interesting of all the experiments he witnessed – one that was designed to demonstrate chemistry.
David Lyon, a fifth-grade teacher at Carver Elementary, said Interaxon’s presentations provide students with an experience they would not normally receive in their classroom.
“This is really good enrichment for these kids, since students like things that are out of the ordinary,” Lyon said.
Before the science presentations, the students took tours of UCLA’s campus, which were led by the school’s official tour guides. The students saw some of the school’s iconic buildings and heard stories about the UCLA rivalry with USC.
Monday’s field trip was the first time many of the elementary school students had visited a college campus, Lyon said. He said seeing college life and interacting with college students encourages the members of his class to go to college.
“We want to show them that college is a tangible thing that they can all achieve,” Ravi said.
Farhan Mithani, a third-year business economics student and publicity chair for Interaxon, said he hopes teaching students science in exciting ways will make some younger students decide to study science in college.
“It’s really cool to simplify and have fun with the stuff we actually learn in class,” said Shannon Shieh, a third-year psychobiology student and Interaxon project director.
Shieh said presenting science with new methods helps solidify her understanding of basic concepts, in addition to helping younger students develop a love for science.
Ravi said the kids Interaxon teaches have a great capacity to learn, but sometimes need to be pushed in the right direction, which he thinks events like this one can do.
When it was time for the kids to end their quick taste of UCLA and return to their fifth-grade classroom, the students from Newcastle Elementary School left Ackerman Grand Ballroom with an 8-clap.
“I want to go to college right now,” said fifth-grade student Nathan Enriquez. “But I guess I’ll have to wait a few more years.”