A retired educator says it's the benefits he sees that keep him on a mission to help kids learn. "I've seen firsthand the excitement in the eyes of the children," said Gene Leonard, who founded ScienceWISE and serves as director of the hands-on program for elementary school students. ScienceWISE provides six- to eight-week instructional units and materials for students in kindergarten through sixth grade. It also offers training for teachers. "The purpose is to engage the minds of students in science and to instill a thirst for learning that inspires," said Leonard, a retired lead principal in the Greater Latrobe School District. "The science lessons engage them in vivid, memorable experimentation, observation and inquiry, and that transcends into other academic areas and everyday life." In partnership with St. Vincent College, and with financial support from private and corporate foundations, Leonard launched the project three years ago and it has "continued to grow," he said. It is now being used in eight of Westmoreland County's 17 school districts, and also in schools in the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg. Fred Rost, a fifth-grade science teacher at Mountain View Elementary School in Unity Township, described the program's challenges. "Inquiry science places a number of expectations on students, such as record keeping, predicting, observing and communicating the results in writing," Rost explained. "They love it." "These hands-on experiments make you tremble with excitement," said Katelyn Brown, a fifth-grader at that school. "They leave you hanging to find out what you're going to do next." One of ScienceWISE's outreach programs is "Parents as Partners in Science," funded by a grant from Dominion Peoples. "The purpose of this is to create opportunities for ongoing communication between students and parents on science-related topics," Leonard said. "When parents participate in their child's school experience, everyone -- the child, parents and teachers -- benefit," added Jan Gebicki, associate principal at Grandview Elementary School in Derry Township. ScienceWISE will sponsor a "day of science" from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday at Westmoreland Mall in Hempfield Township. Students and teachers from the Hempfield Area and Franklin Regional school districts will be at the JCPenney court, encouraging shoppers to stop and talk about the science program or participate in some of the science activities. A similar program held at the mall on March 8 included elementary school students from the Derry Area, Greater Latrobe and Mt. Pleasant Area school districts.

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