The program started at Northeastern University in Boston about 1991. The program was funded by The National Science Foundation and the initial program was focused on training programs for middle school science teachers in New England. The trainers were faculty members from Northeastern. Very early in the program the concept of introducing retired scientific and engineering professionals to the science teachers evolved, and in the early teacher training programs groups of volunteers attended training classes along with the teachers. Through this association teachers and volunteers met and many worked out arrangements to assist science teachers in their classrooms on a regular basis.
Initially, two-week summer training classes were held in Maine and many volunteers were introduced to science teachers here in Maine.
Gradually the principal thrust of the effort changed to that of associating the teachers and volunteers and providing special training for the volunteers in the skills that would enhance their usefulness to the teachers. The program branched into two directions, with one called Seed concentrating on teacher training and another called RE-SEED concentrating on the utilization of volunteers. Both programs are still operating in Massachusetts under the original names.
The Maine program was initially funded by the parent organization at Northeastern University with funding channeled through UNE (University of New England). About four years ago the funding under which the program had been operating in Maine dried up, and to continue it we had to make some changes. Since the program had no affiliation with any non-profit in Maine a new organization in Maine was founded with seed funding provided by PROJECT RE-SEED. The program was called PROJECT RE-SEED, MAINE. Last year the program was re-named Maine School Science Volunteers or MSSV because we felt that the name better described what we did. Under the old name many people assumed that we were involved with re-forestation.
Over the past 12 years we have trained and placed over a hundred volunteers in Maine schools. At present we have about 20 volunteers active and we estimate that our volunteers spend about 1300 hours per year in classrooms and in preparation. We had volunteers in 12 schools. We estimate that over 1000 students were in classes in which MSSV volunteers were involved.
