As the bell rings for the weekend at Revere Middle School (RMS), most students hurry out and head for the bus, but a few linger towards science teacher Jill Alessandro’s classroom. Her room takes a different form after school, resembling more of a laboratory than a classroom. Students eagerly await to experiment and learn new things.
Seniors Leah Valentine, Serena Guo and Katie Nowakowski inherited the Middle School Science Club from former seniors. They are supervised by Alessandro after school every other Friday. They spend their time introducing new scientific topics using experiments.
Science Club provides a way to grant middle school students opportunities to get excited about science. Unlike the typical classroom experience, it offers kids more chances to get hands-on through experiments. It is an excellent opportunity for students to broaden their knowledge. Valentine spoke on what she wants the kids to take away from the club.
“I just want the kids to have a passion for science and really like learning about these things. Even if they’re hard, I think it’d be good for them to just enjoy the process of learning,” Valentine said.
Running the club takes a lot of preparation from both the student leaders and the supervisor. At each meeting they present new material accompanied by an experiment related to the topic. Nowakowski explained how they split up the roles.
“We all split the responsibility of coming up with the content ideas because Science Club has been ongoing, we don’t want to repeat experiments, so . . . we work with Miss A [Alessandro], who’s the middle school adviser, to do appropriate activities that are age appropriate and also time appropriate,” Nowakowski said.
A lot goes into each meeting in terms of materials as well. The club keeps a low budget, so the team gets creative about finding materials. Alessandro requests materials from Bill Conley, the middle school principal, in order to run the club. Conely gets money for the supplies from school funding.
“I can go through and basically say, ‘Oh, this supply might work better for that supply or that might cost a little bit too much. Let’s try to divide this into multiple pieces to make it a little bit more cost effective.’ Mr. Conley pays for the supplies that we need or the resources that we’re going to use for this out of his budget. Sometimes it comes out of the science budget a little bit too,” Alessandro said.
The senior leaders meet over the phone weekly to pick the topics they will discuss. Then, they get their ideas approved by Alessandro. Valentine explained that the meetings have a specific structure every time
“We’ll usually get there a little bit early and set up any materials. And then once kids start getting there, we take attendance. And then we usually start with maybe a ten minute presentation about a specific topic. And then after that, we’ll send them back to their lab tables,” Valentine said.
The number of kids who join the science club each week is growing. More members return each week. The kids take the opportunity to learn about things that are not covered in the classroom. The seniors get a lot of positive feedback from the kids because of the interesting topics they cover. Nowakowski describes the club’s high energy and collaborative nature.
“They’re so full of energy and they’re, anytime I hear oohs and ahhs it makes me feel really good because it means what we’re doing is working. They’re engaged, they’ll ask questions, and then they also have a good time with their friends,” Nowakowski said.
Due to their hard work, the Board of Education recognized the science club leaders and a few of their participants. Conley picks a few people each month to recognize at the monthly board meeting. He enlists the help of teachers to help recognize outstanding achievements in middle school. Alessandro mentioned the club to him, and decided to recognize the seniors and some participants in the meeting. Valentine described the process of getting recognized.
“Miss A just mentioned it one day when we were cleaning up, and she just said it’d be cool if we got recognized, and then a couple weeks later, we got a phone call,” Valentine said.
Science club is a new club at RMS. This is only its third year as a club. Three years ago, two now graduated students approached Alessandro interested in starting the club. They wanted to bring more science curriculum to the middle school in a fun way.
“I had two students that I had prior in class, Alaina Sample and Kaley Lanza, that came to me. . . . They were interested in trying to get science in middle school and just get a club where kids were involved in an academic club, but it wasn’t based on merit,” Alessandro said.
The graduated founders passed down the club to this year’s seniors. They have also seen growing numbers. With these new students, the number of people involved also grows.
“It was actually passed down just to Serena and Katie from last year’s people. . . . At the beginning Serena was like, ‘Oh it’d be good if you could help too,’ and then that’s how I got into it, ” Valentine said.
As the club grows, they may need to recruit even more help. They would need more space and more advisers to continue at this rate of growth. Even though they would need more resources if the club grows, the advisers are excited for the future of the club and would like to see it grow.
“I would just say if you’re a middle schooler and you’re reading The Lantern right now, you should join Science Club next year,” Nowakowski said. 
As the recent club continues to gain attention for its incredible education of young minds, its numbers grow as well.
