Yesterday, a few of my friends from PLoS and I went to the Exploratiorium to see the Iron Science Teacher show. Lots of pictures (and a little bit of running commentary) under the fold:
First, the stuff outside:
Then we went inside. The place is huge - I'll have to come again when I have more time to explore (this was lunch-break only). Hands-on, hands-on, hands-on...and kids - gazillions of them - are having great fun. The show is (almost) every Friday during the summer and you can watch the video of each Iron Science Teacher show, including the one we saw yesterday (I have not see it yet - I wonder if the cameraman got a shot of Professor Steve Steve). The secret ingredient...
was...sugar!
And the team went into a frenzy of mixing, grinding, shaking, cutting cardboard, etc, for a few minutes they had to make their presentations:
Then, they did their presentations, first - the taste test. The audience participants found out that different sugars taste differently - some are sweeter than other:
Many interesting factoids were learned, but there was no real explanation what about chemical structure of different sugars makes one sweet and another not, and there was no mention about our sense of taste. But the kids got cookies, which is one of the strategies to win this contest>
The next one used sugar solutions of four different concentrations (with four different dyes) to build a colorful column, which, upon introduction of dry ice, got all mixed up. If you can't give out the cookies, at least make something foam really hard, without the need to really explain why the less concentrated solution floats on top of a more concentrated solutions, i.e, no mention of density::
The next group boiled some sugar and made the cotton candy. At least they explained what is happening to the molecules as they are heated:
The next group did stuff with teeth decay and made an impressive demonstration of a styrofoam tooth melt under acetone, and they won mostly because they were the most animated and funny, though they said many things without really explaining any:
Finally, the last contestant focused on energy contained in the bonds of the sugar molecules, and used the burning of that energy to show how different chemicals burn with different colors:
It was great fun, but as I have mentioned above, it is more of a gee-weez factor than real explanation. They do have very limited time, though, and the premium is on having fun and grabbing the kids' attention. I assume that in their classrooms, when they have 45 minutes instead of 5, they all spend some more time actually explaining stuff and not just demonstrating flames and explosions while manically running down the list of 'fun factoids'.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
I like your point about not always presenting science so frantically and "manically running down the a list of fun factoids". Personally frantic, mad, whacky science has never appealed to me and I found it quite off putting as a kid. Often the best way to teach science is to get the kids to ask and answer their own questions and just guide them.
I went two weeks ago, and found that the teachers DID explain the scientific principles at work, more so than seems to have been the case here. I guess it depends on what the secret ingredient is, and who the competing teachers are... That said, there's only so much you can do in an hour, and still keep the entertainment factor.
I guess so. I felt that some of them tried to do too much instead of focusing on one thing and doing it thoroughly. It may have been the secret ingredient that is the culprit.