Turned on to science: you don't need a computer to recharge science with technology

Want science activities that light up your classroom? Just add the simplest technology. That's what Ursula Sexton, science specialist at Green Valley Elementary in Danville, California (and winner of the Presidential Award in Science), discovered in her classroom. Here, Ursula shares three of her favorite activities - only one of which requires a computer.

Craters in the Classroom

When Ursula's students drop a marble into a tin of flour and cocoa, they see much more than the resulting crater. Thanks to simple video technology, kids in Ursula's class can study the impact and resulting trajectory in slow motion - and further their thinking in the process.

A CRASH IN SPACE

It all started with a history-making comet crash last July, when the Shoemaker-Levy comet collided with Jupiter. The resulting headlines led Ursula's students to wonder what happens when solid bodies from outer space fall to Earth, so they designed an experiment to find out.

Students first teamed up to learn more about such topics as colonizing and surviving in outer space, and handling space trash. They used information from books and interviewed local scientists. (Ursula recommends contacting local observatories, universities, and amateur planetary societies.) Students then supplemented their research with data from CD-ROM encyclopedias and online services. Finally, they prepared mini-presentations and shared them with the class.

MAKING METEORITES

Presentations complete, students were primed for the experiment.

Materials: flour, cocoa powder, measuring cup, pie tin or shallow cardboard box, meteoroids (such as glass marbles, golf balls, ball bearings, rocks); butcher paper; metersticks; goggles; camcorder; tripod; and VCR with slow-motion play button

Preparation: Form testing groups of four students each. Clear an area for testing and cover the floor with butcher paper. Provide goggles just to be on the safe side. Have groups perform one trial each, as follows.

Procedure:

1. Spread flour in the tin to fill it about halfway. Sprinkle cocoa on top to make a thin, even layer.

2. Place the tin on butcher paper.

3. Set up the video camera on a tripod and focus it on the experiment. (If you also hook up the camera to a TV, you can be giving every student a good view of the action while you tape.)

4. Ask one student in the first group to get in position to drop the "meteoroid" onto "Earth." Have a second student measure the height of the drop, keeping it constant for each trial. As students observe - and as the tape rolls - have the first student drop the meteoroid, which, having crashed, becomes a meteorite.

5. Once the object has landed, have the third group member measure the trajectory of the flour. Stop the videotape. Then have the fourth student ready the site for the next trial by sweeping up the dust.

6. Repeat the process until each group has had a turn.

7. Play the tape for students, hitting the slow-motion button to scrutinize each meteoroid's impact. Better yet, take time to edit the tape to condense 30 minutes of tape into a few great minutes. All you need to do is hook up two VCRs - one with slow-motion capability. Load the original tape into the slow-motion machine (VCR1), and a blank into the second, regular machine (VCR2). As you tape, hit pause on VCR2 while you search VCR1 for the next image you want to record. Use slow motion as desired throughout.

SEEING SCIENCE EVERYWHERE

If you keep your eyes open, you'll have many other opportunities to use your VCR's slow-motion button as a science tool. For example, you can use slow motion to provide increased detail of a sand-table erosion experiment, allowing children to see a small-scale version of what nature does. If you're working with bubbles, observe color changes in slow motion, or use the technique for an analysis of surface tension. (You could even record aluminum-foil boat races.)

Cross-Country 20 Questions

In this up-to-date variation on the game of 20 Questions, Ursula's students discover the many ways of classifying the places people live.

GET READY TO CLASSIFY

Telecommunications brings students from across the country together for this game, in which students ask questions to elicit geographic and geologic clues that will help them discover where the other players live. "The walls of the classroom disappear," says Ursula, who hooked up her students with others through Scholastic Network and arranged to have players meet online in a live "chat area" once a week to play.

Ursula first gives her students a chance to warm up their classifying skills. For example, they practice sorting buttons, animal pictures, and themselves according to different criteria: two-holed vs. four-holed, vertebrates vs. invertebrates, kids wearing sneakers vs. kids wearing other footwear. Then they fine-tune their skills and strategies by playing an in-class version of 20 Questions, in which small groups of students each assume a location around the country and take turns asking and answering questions.

PLAYING ONLINE

At game time, players meet online in an open chat area and take turns asking and answering questions. For example: What is the temperature where you live? In the morning? In the afternoon? What types of rocks do you find where you live? How would you describe the topography around your school? Ursula's students work in teams, and everyone gets involved. While some students type in questions, answer questions, and log responses, others observe, look at maps, offer pointers, tally questions, and so on. In fact, says ursula, the game invites participation at all levels of ability and interest.

With every question students ask, their curiosity grows, Ursula says - and even when the game is over, students want to learn more. She suggests using this natural interest as a springboard to other activities. For example, invite students to make topographical maps of other players' locations. Extend the earth science connection by exchanging soft samples. Have each class grow the same things under similar conditions (such as water and light), then share data. Students can make graphs, plot results, and make comparisons.

Visions of Inventions

Door hinges, wire scraps, batteries, light bulbs, magnets, minimotors: They're all ingredients in an activity that Ursula has developed to inspire students' inventive spirit and give them an appreciation of the work that goes into the technology they use every day.

START BY TINKERING

Every year, Ursula adds to her collection of odds and ends such as those mentioned above. When it comes time for this project, she eases into the topic of invention by allowing students to tinker with the assortment of materials and find out about important inventions. As they work in pairs, for example, students might investigate magnets, discovering what they attract, how many paper dips they can pick up at once, and so on; they may also read about superfast trains that operate via magnetic levitation, or look inside a telephone for a view of electromagnets.

INVENTORS AT WORK

Students then plan and construct inventions, using the materials Ursula's gathered for the class. Student inventions have included:

* puppets that move with magnets;

* question boards complete with hidden circuits that light when answers are correct;

* a pencil with a motor attached - it squiggles when you work.

"Sometimes students find that their inventions don't work," says Ursula. When that happens, she tells them "there's no problem that can't be solved" - and accompanies them back to the drawing board.

RESOURCES

ONLINE SERVICES

Scholastic Network ([800] 246- 2986 or send e-mail to sneditor

Provides science lesson plans, interactive projects, live-chat areas, and an "Ask the Scientist" message board featuring different experts each month. Call for more information.

NASA-NASA Spacelink (Education Programs Office, [205] 544-6360 or send e-mail to comments

An electronic information system that offers space program-related lesson plans and software, current NASA news, NASA images, teaching activities, answers to questions, and more. Access the system through direct-dial modem ([206] 895-0028) or through the Internet (spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov)

SOFTWARE

Red Shift (Intellimation, [800] 346-8355). With this simulation, kids can observe the sky from any point in the solar system; simulate astronomical events for a 15,000-year period; identify more than 300,000 stars and galaxies; navigate surface maps of Earth, the moon, and Mars; and use a video recorder to capture their travels.

Hands-on Electronics (Ventura Educational Systems, [800] 336 1022). This workstation comes complete with more than 50 electronic parts and 26 hands-on experiments.

PC USA, Mac USA (Broderbund, [800] 521-6263). This comprehensive atlas of the U.S. offers individual maps for each state and additional maps showing topography and population. Statistics for living costs and conditions, economic data, demographics, and education are graphed for each state, making it easy for kids to make comparisons.

JOAN NOVELLI, a former teacher, is a contributing editor to Instructor.

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