Flames, Colors Acquaint Kids With Science
By Venice Buhain, The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.
Jan. 18–LACEY — Leigh Simpson, a teacher from the Pacific Science Center, cupped flammable powder in her palm, ready to set it on fire and toss it in the air.
“How many of you think this is a bad idea, but you want to see me to do it anyway?” she asked first- through third-graders at Olympic View Elementary School in Lacey.
About half raised their hands.
Simpson, who teaches for the Science on the Go program, brought the “Radical Reactors” program to Olympic View because of the school’s parent-teacher association, which raises the money for at least two school assemblies each year.
“We wanted an assembly that they hadn’t had in a while and that would get the kids excited about science and math,” said Simone Priest, a PTA member in charge of the school’s assemblies.
The school’s associated student body fund raises money for other assemblies, she added.
The assemblies bring guests and experts to the students, Priest said. Another assembly this year will expose students to opera singers and the famous comic opera “The Barber of Seville,” she said.
At the “Radical Reactions” show, Simpson demonstrated chemical reactions that resulted in color changes, rising temperatures, increased gas and bursts of flame.
Her array of props took up the long side of the gymnasium. Students shook up a water bottle to change the water’s color and combined chemicals to create a reaction that inflated a zip bag until it popped.
Simpson pressed home to the students that three elements were needed for fire by asking them to call the elements out in place of the numerical countdown before she set the flammable powder alight.
“Fuel, heat, oxygen!” the students yelled, and a mushroom cloud of flame went up over Simpson’s head.
China Brown and Ryan Field, both second-graders, were convinced after Simpson’s demonstration that science was fun.
“I liked the fire and the changing colors,” said China, 8.
“I liked it when the bag popped,” added Ryan, 7.
Simpson also performed a math demonstration that used numbers, shapes and probability, aimed at teaching math concepts to the school’s fourth- through sixth-graders. Simpson said she ends the math program with a chemical reaction, so students can see the results of knowing math.
She said the school demonstrations are longer than the ones at the science center in Seattle, so that assemblies can cover more materials relevant in school.
“They can cover more of the (grade-level expectations),” she said.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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