22 Aug: First class, microscope, worms

Well, I think that went reasonably well. The K class seems to be about as eager and excited and friendly a batch of li'l angels as anybody could ask for. I introduced them to the Question Box. If you have questions, any science questions, at any time, sez I, you write them down and put them in the box.

But I don't know how to write! says one very frank boy.

You will, startlingly soon, says the silent internal answer. Out loud, I said, "in that case, you simply ask for help from a teacher".

Last year's microscope has moved to the K class. For the 1st/2nd grade we have a new used microscope with a little wheel you turn to flip thru several power settings. It goes from about 4x up to 56x in a five settings. Not quite a zoom, but pretty nifty nevertheless. Both classes got a bit of focussing practice. I can point my digital camera at the microscope, and then run a USB::RCA wire from the camera to a TV set, and so everybody can see the microscope image at the same time, while a helpful volunteer twiddles the knob and we see the image improve from this



to this



I brought in a bunch of worms from my Can-o-worms ™ worm composting habitat. One of the worms is spending the week in the K classroom, where we are watching to see if he will devour the bit of newspaper I put in with him (my home worms eat quite a lot of newspaper as well as egg cartons and kitchen scraps).

Science Specialist v2.0

Welcome, new readers and old. So, a new year of classes begins. This year there are two science classes instead of just one. I get to meet a whole batch of children who've never seen a Question Box before; and a whole batch of veterans who have already fine-tuned their "stump the band" techniques and will surely come up with deeper and more difficult puzzlers.
With the older group I get an extra 15 minutes each week before Science Cirle for informal sidebars and one-on-one Q&A. I think this might give us marvellous opportunities to dig in deeper on subjects that happen to catch just one child's interest, or subjects where just a few are ready to tackle the advanced ideas.

I confess a few pre-show jitters. Right now they manifest as a nervous feeling that "they've seen it all already", and this year's demos and questions can't maintain last year's pace of spectacle and astonishment. Of course the truth is that the world just doesn't run out of fascinating things. To prove this, try tuning in to the Guaranteed All New Entertainment Nature Channel at any time. All you have to do is pick an outdoor place – any outdoor place – and go, and pick a nice spot, and stand or sit, and wait. Wait a little more. And watch. It's guaranteed: something nifty and original will show up. It might be a bird, or a neat bug, or some strange dirt, or a way that a tree is growing . . . you have to watch carefully. But there will be something. Free entertainment! No ads!
Come to think of it, the same thing works with the amazing Guaranteed All New Children Channel too. All I have to do is get into the classroom, start watching and listening to the children, and they will reliably come up with something nifty and original.

Hokay . . . here comes Wednesday . . . we'll see.