OMG! It's a TEST!

There was a caterpillar and a test.

Like the turtle, the caterpillar gave a fine lesson in patient observation. If you glance at him for a minute, he's just a green lump with spots. When you relax and let things take their course, you see his fascinating ways of moving around, and his erratic but ultimately succesful search-and-forage strategies; and you start to wonder all sorts of things about him: his diet, his age, his changes in size, his metabolism.

And, yes, there was a test on the last day of class. And, yes, papers were handed out and students wrote answers and returned the papers. Still, I wouldn't say I gave a test so much as I did a test.
This is, after all, a science class; and one of the investigative topics is

How much do the children learn? What sort of things do they remember best?

As an experiment (a test if you will) to investigate this topic, I gave them questions along the lines of

What was your favorite science demonstration this year

I got an interesting experimental result right away. The older group all plunged straight into the assignment with enthusiasm. However, in the younger group, 83% simply did not want to do the exercise at all; the other 17% struggled for awhile but didn't get much further than writing a name at the top. (This was presented, Montessori-style, as "a Work you might like to do", so a simple choice not to participate carries no negative meaning).

Looking back at the year, I made a partial list of demonstrations we did. In no particular order,

dry ice, hydrocholoric acid, bird poop caterpillar, turtle, iceberg, flatworm, microscope on TV, mini mushrooms, butt skin, petrified wood, ammonite/trilobite, electric circuits, electric flow thru salt water, skit of electric circuit w/ styro ball electrons, rock/mineral scratch test, candle/carbon dioxide, chromatography, molecular models (wood), molecular model (styro), boiling/freezing water, melting metal, solar system scale model, mold on sour cream, skit of being the tallest tree, flashlight/eclipse, skit of being photons.

I have all the Question Cards saved. In my spare time I need to make a list of those, which are closer to the heart of the Science Specialist Experience.

Parental Questions and suggestions are also welcomed at all times. You know how to reach me.

Anyway, everybody got a certificate (you probably saw one). As my old logic professor said, "everybody gets an A". A finer classroom full of brilliant engaged questioning enthusiastic creative insightful students was never seen, nor is likely to be. Thank you for sending them to us. This is Science Specialist, signing off until August. Good night, and good luck.

Spectacularly bad timing, but fun anyway

Looking around for a Fascinating Demo, I decided to try bringing in some dry ice, or as I prefer to call it, frozen Carbon Dioxide.

As I'm proudly unveiling my little stroke of genius, there's some rumble around the room about "already seen this". It seems I'm the only guy on the planet who doesn't know about the very gracious class grandfather (UT Physics prof) who visited just yesterday. He had frozen CO2. He had liquid oxygen. He had liquid nitrogen. He had a whole Physics Circus. Oh boy. Here I am with my little sack of dry ice from HEB. Yesterday's Physics Circus included demonstration involving balloons. And guess what's in my hip pocket: a sack of party balloons.

I don't know when I've had worse timing than this.

Well, we went on with the show anyway – after all, dry ice is fascinating enough to see more than once. Also, as far as I could tell, my little demo (fill a test tube with dry ice. Stretch a balloon over the top. Watch the balloon expand as the CO2 turns from solid to gas) was actually not something that had been done the day before.

It worked.

The balloon inflated so well, we segued to an unplanned second demonstration. I tied off the CO2-inflated balloon, then carefully inflated another balloon to exactly the same size. Of course CO2 is heavier than air, so the balloons should not weigh the same. Drop them from 6 feet up at the same time, and the CO2 balloon reaches the floor first!

I like it as a demonstration, even if it totally sabotages what they're going to hear about Galileo and the leaning tower of Pisa next year.

Questions are thinning out. I think everybody has End Of Year- osis. (Senior Slump?) . There were two about "why is [other student's name] so nice", which I considered mangling into a whole session on Altruism and evolution - - having just finished reading The Selfish Gene, complete with its startlingly optimistic chapter on the evolutionary basis for trust and cooperation. Maybe next year.

Hazmats

(Class of weds 2 May)

There's been a steady level of interest in rocks and fossils, chert and flint. Reading up on these, I stumbled on an interesting tidbit of information: limestone, when you add hydrochloric acid, should fizz. That sounds like good demo material! sez I, and immediately rummage for the concentrated hydrochloric acid, which is in the garage of course (you can buy it at professional plumbing supply houses under the brand name Vanisol).
I also figured this was a good time to show the similarity between shell and limestone, so now I had two things to douse with acid. And every experiment needs a control, so I also got a chunk of granite. Also a nice chunk of deer bone from the back acreage, because you might wonder Is Bone The Same As Shell?
I was not too excited about the idea of bringing concentrated acid into a kindergarten classroom, though, which is where the TeeVee and digicam come to the rescue. I could do all the dousing and fizzing at home, take little bitty movies on the digicam, and then pipe them into the class TV and show everybody!

It worked! So we had Home Movies of Science Demo.

I suppose I could post the actual movies but they add up to about 200MB. Suffice it to say, the limestone and shell both fizzed gratifyingly and then dissolved away to absolutely nothing. The bone (which was one of those old white dry things that look like they've been there an awfully long time) didn't fizz (it's CaPO4, not CaCO3), but interestingly enough after awhile it mostly dissolved but left behind a little gummy mass which was obviously the protein portion - - even after a few seasons of ants and bacteria and rain and drought, there was a good deal of protein intermixed with the mineral part of the bone. Whadda ya know - - next time you're lost in the wilderness, don't turn your nose up at old bones!