Fast Forward Community Technology Center & the University of South Carolina

St. Lawrence Place

St. Lawrence Place (SLP) is a transitional housing facility located in Columbia, SC geared especially towards families in trouble.  ScienceQuest is conducted as part of their after-school program.  Graduate students, Undergraduate Students, and social workers spend one afternoon a week conducting a series of science experiments (as requested by the SLP kids themselves!).  Groups are split into 4-6 SLP students with 1-2 science mentors.  Within each group, older students act as "assistants" in explaining scientific concepts to the younger members.  Each group conducts the same experiment (designed by the mentors) on any given day.  Some experiments may last several days as Inquiry Based Learning and questioning techniques are the core of the program.

Fall 2008 (in progress)

• Blubber (or How to survive in cold water)

• Race Cars (Back by popular demand, gravity friction and angles)

• The Digestive System (nutrient sources, digestion, and growth)               Directions, Coloring Map, Diagram, & Match the Organ

• Creatures of the Sea (Touch Tank: Who, what, and where)                          Directions, Worksheet 1, Worksheet 2 (younger kids)

• Fossils (Geologic time, evolution)                                                       Directions, Cast Sheet, Fossil ID, Worksheet

Check out the new USC/FastForward Science Corner!

Spring 2008

• Sharks (food webs and ecology)

• Plate Tectonics & Volcanoes II

• Plants (nutrient sources and growth)

• Rockets (force and energy)

• Catapults (force and energy)

• Race Cars (gravity, friction, and angles)

Fall 2007

• Weather and Climate, Making Hail, Weather Test

• Foodwebs and Touch Tank

• Survival of the fittest:  Plants in a Jar

• Plate Tectonics and Building a Volcano

• Mineralogy, Mineral Cheat Sheet

• Fossils and Dinosaurs

• Solids, liquids and gases (including acid rain)

• Candy Chromotography, questions, color wheel

  Last Updated December 2008