What is S.E.E.D?
S.E.E.D. is a cooperative effort between public schools, USC-Aiken, the Ruth Patrick Science Education Center at USC-Aiken and the community to provide stimulating and relevant science experiences for upper elementary and middle school students. It is a one day event that allows students to take a self-guided, hands-on tour through a variety of motivating science activity stations. The event involves not only students, but also their parents, teachers, scientists, engineers, medical personnel, and other related professionals.

Why is it beneficial?
Science is a problem-solving tool and must be presented as such if we wish, first of all, to produce a society of scientifically literate citizens, and secondly, to interest potential future scientists in pursuing science-related fields. It is also a participatory discipline which, along with technology, affects the daily lives of all people. Our primary goals in sponsoring S.E.E.D. are to foster positive attitudes about science and to stimulate the natural curiosity about how and why things behave as they do. Another goal is to encourage the use of critical thinking skills in problem solving situations. We believe that this can be done by actively involving students as hypothesizers, discovers, and evaluators, not merely as spectators.