Date: Fri 28-Feb-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

Discovery-Workshops-schools

Full Text:

Hands-On Science Means Making Things Happen!

B Y D OROTHY E VANS

Chemistry projects are usually quite predictable in their outcomes, except for

those occasional instances when experiments go awry.

If that happens, the true scientist learns from the experience and tries

again, being sure to wear his or her safety goggles, just in case.

"That's what makes science fun - the element of surprise," said Chris Canfield

as he presented his "Kantastic Science" show for an audience of 350 Newtown

parents and their children at Newtown High School last Saturday.

The chemistry show was the concluding event following a morning that featured

29 separate workshops sponsored by the Newtown Junior Women's Club (NJWC) in

its fifth annual Discovery Science Workshop.

Now that the workshops were over, participants were seated in the high school

auditorium, waiting expectantly for something interesting and exciting to

happen on the stage, having to do with all those intriguing-looking glass

tubes and beakers.

After all, you can't blame kids who have been raised on Mr Wizard for hoping.

Kindergartners and fifth graders alike wanted one or two small explosions, a

big bang or at least a puff of smoke.

Mr Canfield, who is a Newtown Middle School science teacher and knows what

kids want from a science show, had prepared several spectacular displays

featuring a collapsing soda can and water vapor (steam) rising from a

four-foot-tall Florence flask.

But the experiment involving a beaker full of clear liquid didn't go well, at

first. When he shook the beaker with a dramatic flourish, the contents did not

turn a bright sulfurous yellow as predicted.

"This isn't going to work," Mr Canfield muttered to co-presenter Tom Kuroski,

as the eighth-grade teachers reread their lab instruction booklet.

Mr Canfield emptied the flask of its disappointingly inert contents and

carefully repeated steps one and two. This time, he added just the right

amount of special ingredients to make a new mixture.

When he shook the flask again, the results were most satisfying.

"Ah!" the audience sighed as they watched the swirling liquid change from

clear to green to brown and then to blue, and "Wow!" they exclaimed as Mr

Canfield pointed his forefinger at the mixture and it suddenly flashed bright

yellow.

Workshop Well Attended

The chemical transformations in "Kantastic Science" proved a fitting end to

the morning's program. Presented in cooperation with the Newtown Board of

Education, the NJWC event was co-sponsored by the Newtown Savings Bank,

Danbury Hospital and Duracell Corporation and was well attended, according to

Judy Rosentel, one of the NJWC event organizers.

"We tried to give everyone at least one of their top choices," she said,

adding, "We hated to turn anyone away."

Each child had come accompanied by a parent, grandparent or other adult, and

was eligible through pre-registration to attend one or two workshop sessions,

according to choice or availability.

Five years ago when the NJWC Science Discovery Workshops were first begun,

there were only 11 classes offered, Mrs Rosentel said, so there had been "real

progress."

"We have a terrific core of volunteer workshop leaders," that have contributed

to the effort, she said.

Parents Learned, Too

"This just reinforces what we all tend to forget, which is that you can never

stop learning," said parent Patrick Hill.

Mr Hill was taking a snack break at 10:30 am in the NHS cafeteria courtyard

with his six-year-old son, Michael.

Other parents remembered their own days as students at Newtown High.

"We sat in the same biology classroom I sat in 25 years ago - and it still

smells the same," said Gary Ober, who spent the morning in room 241A making a

barometer with his daughter, Claire.

"Dinosaurs and space, kids still like the same things as when I was a kid,"

commented Mr Canfield before putting on his "Kantastic Science" show.

It seemed that in nearly every workshop parents and children were involved and

interested. They found that the process of scientific discovery meant posing

questions as well as finding answers, and it usually paid to be curious.

Ladybug Population Explosion

In every one of the 29 workshops, group leaders presented activities in such a

way that parents and children could learn together, though sometimes at

different levels.

Would the "good" ladybugs devour the "bad" mealy bugs that were infesting

instructor Dan Dalton's gardenia plant in room 244A?

The children watched in awe as Mr Dalton released a container full of the

beneficial orange beetles, but they laughed when some of the beetles seemed to

prefer crawling up their arms to attacking the white cottony mealy bugs.

Maybe the ladybugs weren't hungry yet, the children decided.

Meanwhile, the parents watching from the background commented to each other

that science was happening at home, too. Many had noticed lately an

unexplained and sudden invasion of ladybugs in their houses, and they wondered

why.

Causes And Special Effects

During the workshop titled "How Things Fly," children wondered what made the

balloon-propelled paper bag shoot across the room.

There could be no doubt in their minds what made paper airplanes soar, as they

demonstrated their skills after carefully creating the paper airplanes with

their parents, folding and creasing along the dotted lines.

"This is the part where the class totally deteriorates," joked workshop leader

Charlie Hofstrand.

After entomology and aeronautics, students and their parents delved into

anatomical biology in the popular workshop titled, "Guts and Bones."

So what exactly does a sheep's heart feel like when you examine it wearing

surgical gloves?

"Sort of wet and hard at the same time," said Sarah Greenfield, who attended

the session in the company of her mother.

Sarah said she hoped someday to become a doctor. She had especially enjoyed

putting together a skeleton during the workshop.

Genevieve Bleidner, 6, watched a movie about birth during the "Honey, I Grew

The Kid" workshop and said afterward she wanted to be an obstetrician "because

I like babies."

During "Architecture: A Bridge Between Art and Science," children and adults

found out how paper cups could be glued together to create a geodesic dome.

They also learned a few construction basics as they tried to erect a tower of

blocks that would reach from floor to ceiling and not topple over. Clearly, a

stable base was the key to success.

"If we do this, what do we get?" one boy asked workshop leader Robert

Mitchell.

"Satisfaction!" interjected his father.