Elementary education majors from the 鶹AV drew oohs and aahs from second-grade students at Katharine Drexel Elementary School in Broussard, La., during a recent Science Fun Day.
How? By leading the young students on interactive journeys that took them into outer space, to the mouths of makeshift volcanoes that spewed “lava,” and to prehistoric periods when dinosaurs stood atop the Earth’s food chain.
To learn about the work of paleontologists, the second-graders sifted through plastic tubs, filled with “sediment,” in search of dinosaur bones. Students pieced together the plastic bones that they unearthed to make dinosaur skeletons.
It was an undertaking that second-grader Madelyn Hill, a dinosaur enthusiast, thoroughly enjoyed. She correctly identified the specimen she was working on as a Triceratops. “They’re plant eaters, and ‘tri’ means that they have three horns,” she explained.
Second-grader Jeremy Arceneaux was taken in by the physics lesson, which involved assembling a structure of plastic drinking straws bound with tape. “It’s fun when you get to build stuff, and we made a tower so people can study how it’s made,” he said.
Science Fun Day was coordinated by 鶹AV students taking EDCI 425, “Science in the Elementary School,” a course taught by Dr. Nathan Dolenc.
Earlier this semester, they visited classrooms at Katharine Drexel. Their mission was to gauge the young students’ perceptions about scientists and to learn which scientific topics interest them.
“The goal was to broaden their impressions about who scientists are and what they do, and to answer some of their science-related questions,” explained Dolenc, an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.
Based on their visits, the 鶹AV students created a series of 20-minute, hands-on activities that illustrated the roles of six scientists: astronauts, biologists, chemists, geologists, paleontologists and physicists.
The project enabled the University students to develop mock lessons and gain classroom experience, before starting their yearlong student-teacher residencies, explained Paxton Cantrelle, a senior from Ponchatoula, La.
“Figuring out the students’ interests helped us learn how to come up with ways to engage them and meet their learning needs,” Cantrell said.
For the chemistry portion of Science Fun Day, the future teachers helped the kids orchestrate a faux volcanic eruption. They poured a mixture of ingredients—such as yeast, liquid dishwashing soap, and hydrogen peroxide—into a plastic water bottle. The resulting chemical reaction caused the concoction to bubble up and out of the bottle’s spout.
In another demonstration, students ducked beneath their desks, laid on their backs and scribbled on pieces of notepaper stuck to the undersides of the writing surfaces. The exercise mimicked challenges astronauts face completing tasks in space, where the pull of gravity is much less than on Earth.
As part of the biology lesson, second-graders got to dip their hands into a container of cold water, then repeat the process with their hand tucked inside a Ziploc bag filled with vegetable shortening. The experiment was designed to show how layers of fat, on animals such as polar bears, help them to survive in extremely cold climates.
Budding geologists learned how rocks can exist in solid states by examining chunks of chocolate, which represented sedimentary rock, and molten states, by studying chocolate melted on a hot plate.
Drexel teacher Aja Wood said she enjoyed the interactive lessons as much as her second-graders, calling it an invaluable learning experience.
“I’ve always said that it’s important to get kids to fall in love with learning, and activities that are authentic, actively engage students and are discovery-based are a huge part of that,” she explained.
Photo info: 鶹AV elementary education majors, including Tiffani Satriano (right) took second graders on interactive journeys to places like the mouths of makeshift volcanoes and outer space during a recent Science Fun Day at Katharine Drexel Elementary School.