{"id":37891,"date":"2018-06-27T13:54:30","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T17:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/?p=37891"},"modified":"2022-12-14T11:32:42","modified_gmt":"2022-12-14T16:32:42","slug":"researchers-share-passion-for-science-with-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/healthy-tomorrows\/researchers-share-passion-for-science-with-youth\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers share passion for science with youth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stem cell researcher and <\/em>PhD student Marissa Lithopoulos has volunteered with the Let\u2019s Talk Science outreach program since 2014. The University of Ottawa chapter of this national program celebrates its 25th<\/sup> anniversary this year. Photo by Zhaoyi Chen.<\/em><\/p>\n

Marissa Lithopoulos has always had a passion for science.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy favourite show growing up was \u2018Bill Nye the Science Guy.\u2019 I knew I wanted to be just like him one day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lithopoulos began delivering hands-on science activities in classrooms as part of the Let\u2019s Talk Science outreach program in 2014 and has been hooked ever since.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started by visiting elementary schools and, to the kids, it\u2019s like you\u2019re a magician,\u201d said the PhD student, who works at The Ottawa Hospital. \u201cYou\u2019re making volcanoes and slime in the classroom, and the students are super-excited. They just look at you with a sparkle in their eye like, \u2018Wow, you\u2019re a scientist!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Lithopoulos is one of 254 active volunteers from the University of Ottawa chapter of Let\u2019s Talk Science, which celebrates its 25th<\/sup> anniversary this month.<\/p>\n

From volcanic eruptions, Lithopoulos moved into educating high school students about her own area of expertise: stem cells. She also collaborated with fellow PhD students and stem cell researchers Will Chen, Zhaoyi Chen and Tanya Foley to organize an annual symposium called StemCellTalks for high school students that focuses on stem cell biology, policy, and ethics. Cancer researchers Marie-\u00c8ve Wedge and David Cook also organize a similar symposium called Let\u2019s Talk Cancer, in addition to arranging dozens of hands-on tours through The Ottawa Hospital\u2019s cancer labs.<\/p>\n

Begun at Western University, the now-national science outreach program was launched at the University of Ottawa in spring 1993 by Dr. Barbara Vanderhyden<\/a>, a senior scientist at The Ottawa Hospital and distinguished professor at the university. She established the\u00a0“Let’s Talk Science Outreach program<\/a>”\u00a0with the goal of helping students in the\u00a0science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields\u00a0improve their communication and teaching skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only does the program teach kids about science from trusted university sources, but the hope is that they may appreciate the importance of science in their everyday lives \u2013 and it may even inspire them to enter the profession themselves,\u201d said Dr. Vanderhyden.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s Talk Science volunteers from Ottawa have won 24 national awards and recognition in the past decade, and the program itself has earned many national awards for it’s hands-on, interactive and in-person approach.<\/p>\n

While stem cells hold a lot of promise, few proven treatments are currently available. Many fraudulent companies exploit the hype by selling treatments that aren\u2019t based on scientific evidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany researchers, particularly in Canada, are doing amazing things with stem cells, but it\u2019s important to acknowledge that there is some bad science out there in the world,\u201d said Lithopoulos. \u201cI think it\u2019s our responsibility as stem cell experts to educate the public about what stem cells can and can\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to having fun and learning leadership and event-planning skills, Lithopoulos finds her outreach work humbling. Sometimes students will ask thought-provoking questions that make her see her work in a different light.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to convey to students that science is more about asking the right questions, rather than always having the right answers,\u201d said Lithopoulos. \u201cThe goal is to get students to think, not to tell them what to think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learn more about Let\u2019s Talk Science<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marissa Lithopoulos has always had a passion for science. \u201cMy favourite show growing up was \u2018Bill Nye the Science Guy.\u2019 I knew I wanted to be just like him one day.\u201d She began delivering hands-on science activities in classrooms as part of the Let\u2019s Talk Science outreach program in 2014 and has been hooked ever since.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":37893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[177,393,92,93],"class_list":["post-37891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-tomorrows","tag-community-engagement","tag-education","tag-research","tag-stem-cells"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}