{"id":199154,"date":"2015-04-15T04:00:37","date_gmt":"2015-04-14T18:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=199154"},"modified":"2015-04-15T04:00:37","modified_gmt":"2015-04-14T18:00:37","slug":"chaminade-science-outreach-program-reaches-gca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/chaminade-science-outreach-program-reaches-gca\/","title":{"rendered":"Chaminade science outreach program reaches GCA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Johnny<\/a>
Johnny Aldan, a recent biology graduate from Chaminade University in Hawaii, shows Grace Christian Academy elementary students how germs spread quickly and easily. (Dennis B. Chan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Grace Christian Academy students recently had some fun learning about how germs spread quickly and easily.<\/p>\n

Johnny Aldan, a recent biology graduate from Chaminade University in Hawaii, showed them how through several science exercises on Monday.<\/p>\n

Aldan shared lessons from the \u201cI Am a Scientist,\u201d or IAS, a science outreach program offered by Chaminade University. Researchers, faculty, post-doctorate, graduate and undergraduate students travel to Hawaii\u2019s elementary schools to promote S.T.E.M. education throughout the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis program is a big program out in Honolulu,\u201d Aldan told Saipan Tribune. \u201cWe have served over 4,000 students to date. This is the first time the program has left Hawaii and come to another Pacific island.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratories and Chaminade University sponsor the program. It began in 2009.<\/p>\n

Aldan wowed about 41 GCA students on Monday, many of whom were excited to be affected by a \u201cgerm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students were given tubes of water that when passed around each other would get hints of sodium hydroxide, or the \u201cpretend germ\u201d in the exercise. This would react with a chemical that turned the germ and the tube of water into different shades of pink.<\/p>\n

Aldan had students line up into a \u201chuman bar graph,\u201d made of three lines for \u201clight, medium, or dark\u201d germ.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a way to teach students how germs spread and how easily they are spread among people,\u201d Aldan explained, so that students are \u201cmore mindful of their surroundings and how they act around people when they are sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aldan, who is visiting family on Saipan, volunteered to showcase the program.<\/p>\n

He added that they also do other modules. Monday\u2019s was called \u201cGerms on Me.\u201d Another module they do is \u201cHow Sweet It Is.\u201d This module teaches students how to read nutrition labels on soda cans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe actually weight out the grams of sugar in the bottle. We get to see the difference between the actual can and the sugar that is in the can. It actually freaks them [students] out most of the time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt works for kids,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Aldan was motivated to share the program with the students because there were not many science showcases on island when he grew up. \u201cWe mostly stuck to our textbooks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He got to see it firsthand when he got to Hawaii, he said, adding that the program has been on an upward trend since they started.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to do this as a pilot [class] for Saipan. I was very thankful that GCA got me to come in,\u201d he said, adding that he is open to invitations from other schools.<\/p>\n

\u2018The program is a hundred percent free,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to do it here on Saipan to showcase to teachers here, so if they can spread the word out so hopefully [the Northern Marianas College] can start\u201d a similar program, he said.<\/p>\n

NMC assisted Monday\u2019s event with three nursing students to help the presentation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grace Christian Academy students recently had some fun learning about how germs spread quickly and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":199155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3819,698,1363,67],"class_list":["post-199154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-chaminade-university","tag-gca","tag-grace-christian-academy","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}