Leslie Shelton, left, a graduate student at Brown, and Julia Beamesderfer, a sophomore at Brown, explain the properties of the LCD display to the students at the Cooley High School.

The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach

PROVIDENCE — Three years ago, Holly Polhemus, a teacher at Vartan Gregorian Elementary School, wanted her fourth graders to see fossils at Brown University, so she called a geology professor she had met at a school event.

The professor, Tim Herbert, put together a short lesson for her students and asked some of his graduate students to help out. The grad students were so taken with the children’s enthusiasm and curiosity that they decided to do more. In no time, Laura Cleaveland, then a second-year graduate student, had enlisted 20 geology students to lead weekly science classes in Gregorian’s fourth grade classrooms.

This volunteer effort and several similar programs laid the groundwork for an announcement yesterday that Brown University has received $3 million from the National Science Foundation to create fellowships for physics, geology and engineering graduate students to lead after-school activities in nine Providence schools.

Each week, the graduate students will bring hands-on experiments to several elementary and high schools. Each graduate student will receive a $30,000 stipend to prepare and present the activities. The money will also pay for training for grad students and public school teachers and it will enable teachers and students to participate in research projects with Brown students and faculty.

Brown faculty members said this experience will provide an invaluable lesson for graduate students and the children.

“Our kids get to go out there and get a taste of the real world,” said Gregory Crawford, dean of engineering. “And it’s terrific for the high school students to have kids almost their own age who are highly motivated and can serve as role models.”

“We’re trying to put science on the radar screen,” Herbert said. “We’re picking the beginning of school to try to get kids doing science activities early on, particularly because there are no more science specialists in the elementary schools. And we’re picking the end of school because high school is a critical time for kids to think about their future.”

Yesterday, a dozen students at Cooley Health & Science Technology High School, members of the Science Olympiad Club, stayed late to learn about the properties of liquid crystals, the stuff behind LCD screens. The students put together their primitive LCDs by clamping together two tiny pieces of opaque glass and dropping a bit of liquid crystal between them. Four physics students from Brown ran the class.

“This is actually better than working with a teacher,” said John Cafaro, 19, “because they are closer to our age and they know where we’re coming from.”

“We have a lot more fun than in class,” said Xavier Maria, 18. “In class, we use books. Here, we’re using the actual science materials.”

The Brown volunteers said they are constantly astonished by the inquisitiveness of the Gregorian children, by their willingness to engage in challenging topics.

“They’re not afraid to ask questions,” said Caitlin Chazen, 24, a geology grad student. “One time, I asked the class what the atmosphere is made of and one little girl said, ‘Blood?’ No one laughed. It was a perfectly acceptable answer.”

According to the graduate students, this experience has allowed them to make connections with the children, who come from wealthy East Side households and struggling immigrant families.

One child approached a grad student with a piece of quartz and said: “My uncle gave me this. It’s a meteorite.” Another fourth grader invited a Spanish-speaking graduate student to come to her class during a discussion of ethnic heritage.

Thanks to the volunteer program, graduate students have also developed an appreciation for the formidable challenges facing the typical urban teacher.

“These teachers are great but they have 26 students to deal with,” one grad student said. “We only have to prepare one class a week but they do it six hours a day, five days a week. Our success is due to these teachers letting us in.”

In addition to learning scientific principals, the fourth graders learn to think like scientists, asking questions, keeping records of their experiments and searching for alternative explanations. The National Science Foundation grant will formalize the kinds of learning that have been happening on a volunteer basis for the past three years.

In grades three through six, grad students will prepare one lesson plan a week, and in high school, they will perform a mix of in-school and after-school activities. The fellows haven’t been chosen yet but the screening process is being developed. The East Bay Educational Collaborative will train the graduate fellows.

The elementary schools selected for the program are Gregorian, Martin Luther King and a third that has yet to be named. The high schools include Hope, Central, Cooley and two other schools that haven’t been chosen.

The grant applicants include Herbert, Crawford, Assistant Prof. Karen Haberstroh, Associate Prof. Ian Dell’Antonio, David Targan, dean for science programs, and associate Prof. Gregory Tucker.

lborg@projo.com