Physics Fridays – undergraduate student led physics outreach program for K-12 kids.

In 2011 CSU’s chapter of SPS established an outreach program called Physics Fridays at Campus International School (CIS), a local K-8 Cleveland public school. Since then, physics students and CSU physics alumni have gone to CIS once a month through the academic year for an interactive physics exploration session with CIS students. The outreach program, which typically serves 30-50 kids in the CIS afterschool program, has won 11 Marsh W. White Awards from the National SPS. These awards have supported the significant part of the spring activities in the year-round program. Over the years, we have created a variety of fun and exciting inquiry-based lesson plans to engage kids with physics/science. Since its inception, we have had more than 55 Physics Friday sessions at CIS, each consisting of three or four different demo stations. Many of the outreach visits followed unique lesson plans, with no particular outreach session repeated more than 3 times. The lesson plans were created by an SPS outreach coordinator (we have been led by nine excellent coordinators since 2011) and their team of volunteers. Since 2011, more than 50 CSU students have participated in the Physics Fridays outreach lesson creation and execution along the way learning cool physics and quite a bit about themselves. This presentation will highlight our motivation and discuss the challenges and successes of our student-led outreach program.