Vanderbilt Student Volunteers for Science
Volunteer Attendance Form
Volunteers, please have a group member fill out this attendance form after every lesson your group teaches!
Fall 2025 applications are now open!
Volunteer Applications (VU Students)
- We are teaching Nashville Metro students in the classroom again this semester! Volunteer and teacher applications will be open until September 5, 2025
Who Are We?
VSVS At a Glance
Introduction
VSVS is a service organization composed of undergraduate, graduate, and medical students who are committed to bringing inquiry-based, hands-on science lessons to elementary and middle school students.
Our goals are to provide Vanderbilt students with an opportunity to explain science to school children, to help college students recognize their responsibilities for community service and the importance of volunteer service in schools, to provide role models for school children, to stimulate an interest in teaching as a profession, and to help kids develop a passion for science.
About Us
VSVS partners a team of 3-4 volunteers with a 5th – 8th grade classroom teacher from the Metro Nashville Public School System
Each team visits the same classroom 4 times per semester and teaches a different hands-on science lesson each week
Teachers stay in the classroom during lessons
Lessons are:
- Designed to fit each grade’s curriculum
- FUN and easy for the volunteers to teach
- Enjoyable and informative!
Lesson materials are portable and SAFE
A manual with lesson plans is provided to every volunteer
Over 100 lessons have been written by VSVS over the years. The lessons taught in classrooms change each semester and are designed in accordance with the Science Curriculum Standards as set by the Tennessee Board of Education. Details of each lesson, including manuals and videos, can be found here
Robotics lessons are also offered at selected schools
What Else Do We Do?
In addition to our regular classroom visits, we also:
- Provide volunteers and lessons for after-school science enrichment events in science clubs
- Teach 10 minute lessons to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital patients in their rooms
- Teach 10-15 minute mini lessons at science “festivals” and Metro parent/student science nights
- Participate in Vanderbilt Fall service days and MLK service day
- Judge science fair projects
- Teach science lessons to Vanderbilt Next Steps students
- Write letters of support for grant applications from research faculty
- Provide lessons and materials for other Vanderbilt student groups, including Vanderbilt Programs for Talented Youth, Alternative Spring and Winter Break teams, Society of Women Engineers, MANNA, Dance Marathon, Next Steps at Vanderbilt University, The Ingram Scholars Program, and many more
- Provide science kits to teachers who do not have VSVS teams
- Train teachers from surrounding rural counties and provide VSVS kits for their use
Award:
VSVS won a 2011 National Institutes of Health K-12 LAB Challenge Award for the experiment “Protecting Skin from Ultraviolet Light,” written by Pat Tellinghuisen, Melvin Joesten, and Rachel Shevin
