|
Thursday, 27 March 2008 |
COSI visits Northridge
 Courtney Hager, 10, a fourth-grade student at Northridge Elementary School, creates slime Wednesday as Wapakoneta High School junior Ashlee Elchert supervises. (Staff photo/ Kristin Reichardt)
By KAREN CAMPBELL
Staff Writer
Using a stir stick to mix polyvinyl alcohol, sodium tetraborate and blue food coloring, Emily Klopfenstein kept stirring until her slime felt like Jello.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” Emily said as she packaged up her “goo” to take home. “I’ve always liked science, but this makes it more fun and helps you understand it better.”
Students got a slimy science lesson Wednesday when COSI Columbus brought it’s program, “It’s Simply Science,” to Northridge Elementary School.
The innovative and interactive program stimulates the imagination of the next generation of scientists and chemists by allowing students to explore chemistry through simple experiments designed to introduce new science principles, the program’s outreach demonstrator Kara Duff said.
It is designed to get children to ask questions and explore science through nine different stations, she said.
The hands-on, traveling exhibit is one of six outreach demonstrations designed for students in kindergarten through sixth grade and taken into schools each year by COSI.
Each year, more than 350,000 students across the state take part in one of the COSI on Wheels programs.
Northridge Elementary School students began their Wednesday with a 45-minute assembly introducing students to how chemistry affects their everyday lives, with Duff acting as a “chemistry detective,” solving mysteries by identifying acids and bases, determining unknown substances, and decoding an invisible message.
The assembly was followed by each class taking a turn trying the hands-on activities during which students made their own super slime, created endothermic (heat producing) and exothermic (heat absorbing) reactions, and learned to identify unknown substances using chemistry.
Helping students through each station were volunteers from Wapakoneta High School science classes and parents, who were specially trained before Wednesday’s program began.
The COSI program aligns with Ohio Academic Content Standards, allowing students to learn about chemistry principles and reactions in an environment that breeds excitement and curiosity about a topic they might not have clearly grasped in the traditional classroom setting, Duff said.
COSI’s visit came with pre- and post-activities that teachers could perform with their students in the classroom, to make the activity much more meaningful.
Fourth-grade teacher Jill Briem said the activities reinforce science and chemistry lessons her students are already learning, as well as teach them new concepts.
Some of what they learned Wednesday, Briem said she would not be able to recreate in the classroom because all the materials are not available for use.
“They love doing experiments and learning with their hands,” Briem said. “We try to do that as much as we can.”
One of the students’ favorite stations Wednesday dealt with the three stages of matter and encouraged them to mix a solid with a liquid to produce a gas right in a baggie in their own hands, so they could see, feel and hear the results.
“It’s like nothing I’ve seen in fourth grade,” Michala Binkley said. “We wouldn’t be able to normally do these projects in class.”
As Stone Schnarre explained how to write secret messages after a visit to that station, he said getting to see the concepts they learn about makes it easier to understand them.
Even high school volunteer Gary Cox said he learned something from the experiment as he saw the chemical reaction.
Juniors Ashlee Elchert and Amy Copeland said they enjoyed helping the students learn about science and at the same time, they, too, were trying something new, as they led the super slime making station.
Elchert said it helps not only to see concepts come to life but for the students to get to make them come to life themselves.
She said that was true no matter how old the student is.
“It’s easier to learn and remember something when you can do it,” Copeland said. |
|
Last Updated ( Friday, 28 March 2008 )
|
