WIZARD OF THE WEST

Sorcerer Dominick Casadonte has taken his magic science show on the road for 10 years exhibiting the enchantment and transforming power of chemistry. With magician’s hat on, Casadonte brings his love for science to people of the region in hopes of encouraging others’ interest in science.

Traveling throughout Texas and New Mexico, Casadonte, professor of chemistry at Texas Tech University, has performed more than 250 chemical demonstrations to audiences totaling more than 30,000 people. His goal is to put the younger and older generations together in science classrooms, with seniors volunteering as teachers’ aides to mentor children in elementary or junior high schools.

Project Seniors SERVE (Science Enrichment using Retired Volunteer Educators), a National Science Foundation Discovery Corps Fellowship project, offers retired senior citizens who have not taught science an opportunity to learn basic science and to assist teachers. “Retired senior citizens have a lot to offer our communities. They have experiences, knowledge, understanding and time to give. Many senior citizens also have an interest in continuing to learn,” Casadonte says. “Our children need positive influences in their lives, and our teachers need support in the classroom.”

Although similar programs exist in which senior help school children learn to read, the model is unique in the field of science, Casadonte says. He believes that a “wise elder-to-student knowledge transfer” will have a beneficial effect in the teaching of science for both the seniors and students. And, he hopes to provide a productive new educational paradigm in a variety of subjects.

“This is a good idea because in many cases children, especially those in lower socioeconomic schools, have parents who are single or have to work long hours, thus having less time to spend with their children,” he says.

In this pilot project, Project SERVE teaches senior citizens without a science background the fifth- and eighth-grade chemistry curriculum and age-appropriate pedagogy in a 12-week period. After the training, Casadonte’s first class of 12 seniors will help in eight Lubbock Independent School District classrooms, acting as teachers’ aides and mentors. The schools were selected based on their status as underperforming, and because their students are from disadvantaged backgrounds. Casadonte and his team of researchers will assess all of the benefits to seniors as they progress through the project, such as physical health, energy level, attitudes toward themselves, as well as their science content knowledge. The researchers also will test the children’s learning to determine any educational impact to schoolchildren.