Through a program called Wonderwise, kids can learn about topics including plant genetics, water quality, pollen movement and sea otter behavior through the eyes of female scientists.

“Basically, what we’re looking for is some kind of spark to get kids going,” said Steve Truby, youth initiative specialist for ISU Extension. “Our role is to stimulate interest in science and education.”

The Wonderwise program consists of nine kits in different areas of science, Truby said. Each kit comes with a video, CD-ROM and activity book.

The hands-on activities are designed for fourth- through sixth-graders but have been used with kids as young as kindergarten or as old as college, Truby said.

“They are cool, fun little activities,” Truby said. “I’ve done it with lots of kids already. They really enjoy it.”

One Wonderwise kit is called “Parasite Sleuth,” Truby said.

“They’ll actually build clay models of parasites to learn about the internal organs,” he said.

Other activities include “learning about water quality by making paper clip water bugs” and using actual fur to investigate how oil spills affect animals, Truby said.

A two-day training session was held two weeks ago to orient future leaders of Wonderwise to the program, Truby said. Teams from each state area of extension consisting of field staff, county youth coordinators and volunteers participated, he said.

“Our idea was that the people in that area that attended the training would be the leaders in that area,” Truby said. “We’re doing some workshops in March with other extension folks across the state.”

Kelly Tanghe, Chrysalis program coordinator for student role models in the Women in Science and Engineering program at Iowa State, also attended the training.

Tanghe said training participants did an example activity from each Wonderwise kit. Example activities included crumpling paper to study watersheds and making model worms from Play-Doh, she said.

“I thought they were all really interesting,” said Tanghe, sophomore in nutritional science.

Tanghe said WiSE is planning outreach programs with girls and minorities in the Des Moines area through school visits and after-school programs.

“We’re thinking about using some of the activities from the Wonderwise program,” Tanghe said. “It’s a good program.”

Tanghe said although the program features only female scientists, it is “not too pushy.”

“It’s sending a positive message without being in-your-face,” Tanghe said. “Honestly, I had a lot of fun at the training.”

The Wonderwise program originated in the early 1990s from a National Science Foundation grant at the University of Nebraska, Truby said.

It was written to be used in a formal education setting with students in fourth- through sixth-grades as a component to their science learning, he said.

In 1998, the Nebraska 4-H program became involved with Wonderwise and received another grant, Truby said.

“The focus became there, how could the activities be edited or redone to be used in a nonformal setting,” Truby said.

Wonderwise was piloted with 4-H groups in 10 states and the activities were rewritten based on feedback from those groups, Truby said.

Truby was trained in the fall of 2000 and brought Wonderwise to Iowa to be piloted in 2001.

Today, Wonderwise kits can be ordered online and leaders can choose whether they want the formal or non-formal education, Truby said. Iowa purchased the nonformal kits.

“We feel they still can be used in a school setting,” Truby said. “They’ve made it where a kid can go home and do it on their own.”