{"id":12371,"date":"2012-12-04T09:27:46","date_gmt":"2012-12-04T19:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=12371"},"modified":"2021-01-08T14:08:30","modified_gmt":"2021-01-09T00:08:30","slug":"future-scientists-inspired-by-gene-ius-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2012\/12\/04\/future-scientists-inspired-by-gene-ius-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Future scientists inspired by Gene-ius Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"676\" height=\"380\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kk7g3Xvu4j4?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Why are these elementary school students spending a Saturday morning at the University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M&#257;noa? In lab coats, no less? <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I gonna study bugs and be, like, a scientist,&rdquo; said 7-year-old William Keane. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We&#8217;re learning about insects,&rdquo; said Stella Botha, 9. <\/p>\n<p>They were among 50 or so kids participating in an outreach event called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ctahr.hawaii.edu\/geneius-day\/\">Gene-ius Day<\/a>, organized and created by <strong>Ania Wieczorek<\/strong> director of <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M&#257;noa&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ctahr.hawaii.edu\/site\/\">College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources&#8217;<\/a> Biotechnology Outreach Program. Gene-ius Day started as a school field trip program five years ago, and was so popular, Wieczorek added Saturday sessions about a year ago.  <\/p>\n<p>More than 5,000 students have taken part in the program&#8217;s engaging, hands-on activities on topics such as human and plant genetic traits, forensic science, agriculture and <abbr>DNA<\/abbr> research. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Essentially what we&#8217;re doing is trying to inspire them, make them as excited as we are about science,&rdquo; said <strong>MJ Gauthier<\/strong>, Gene-ius Day co-coordinator and PhD candidate. <\/p>\n<p>A Gene-ius Day class in November was all about insects&#8212;the kids even built their own bug. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Just things that they wouldn&#8217;t normally get to do or see in their daily life or maybe in their regular classroom,&rdquo; said Gauthier. <\/p>\n<p>Some of the student responses to the crawly critters were predictable&#8212;&ldquo;they look weird&rdquo; said one student. <\/p>\n<p>However, most were more excited than disgusted. Gauthier kept her enthusiastic students engaged and they were eager to share their newfound knowledge. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I learned about different parts of all animals like the thorax,&rdquo; said Botha. <\/p>\n<p>Luke Meyer, 8, said that he &rdquo;learned that scientists group insects by how they are alike, or in common.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I learned that bugs usually have spiracles and other kinds of senses,&rdquo; said Keane. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not only the kids that enjoy the lessons, parents appreciate the classes too. &ldquo;It&#8217;s been a great way for them to learn about science,&rdquo; said William&#8217;s mother Tina Keane. &ldquo;He&#8217;s having a blast, and it&#8217;s something we can do together on the weekend&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>The Saturday Gene-ius day classes fill up early, which gives organizers hope that they are accomplishing their mission&#8212;getting kids excited about science. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;So that they want to come back to <abbr>UH<\/abbr>, they want to continue in science, and just keep learning,&rdquo; said Gauthier. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M&#257;noa outreach program shares science activities with enthusiastic elementary school children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,12],"tags":[212,313,9,56],"class_list":["post-12371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-video","tag-college-of-tropical-agriculture-and-human-resilience","tag-stem","tag-uh-manoa","tag-video-2","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12371"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133619,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12371\/revisions\/133619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}