Last Friday, 50 fifth graders wandered through Druckenmiller Hall, peering through glass tanks at fish in an aquaponics system, handling sea stars and other sea organisms, and classifying rocks from around the world.
Members of the Bowdoin student organization, the Coalition for Expanding the Reach of Earth Science (CERES), had set up a science fair to expose two classes from Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary School to chemistry, marine biology and geology. Megan Freiberger ’16, the founder of CERES and a chemistry and earth and oceanographic double major, said her group wants to share Bowdoin’s resources with the community and local schools.
“We’re interested in getting kids interested in science and earth science,” she explained. “They’ll say they want to be a police officer or a firefighter, but they won’t say, ‘I want to be an earth scientist.’ I never did, and now I do want to be one!”
