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| Denstity Columns |
This post was created from an article that was originally published in the Mercury Register by Barbara Arrigoni
OROVILLE — Chemical reactions, density and outer space were translated into hands-on fun Friday for 33 grade-school children with the help of Oroville High School's teenage Science Ambassadors.
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| Dry Ice Bubbles |
For more than two hours, Allen Kreitzer's students made bouncy balls out of glue, blew bubbles from a mixture of dry ice and liquids, and used dry ice to inflate balloons.
They also learned about space, particularly supernovas, which they painted on silk squares.
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| Density of Bubbles vs Dry Ice |
Leading the class were Oroville High School chemistry teacher Shane Johnston and the high school's student club, Science Ambassadors.In its fourth year, the club goes to different schools and grade levels to help make science more fun and interesting.
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| Learning Moment |
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| Conservation of Mass |
Johnston said recently the Science Ambassadors got a grant from the Lassen Foundation that paid for the Ambassadors to go to Lassen Volcanic National Park and take 15 teens there."The kids are going to take what they learned at the park and build a teaching, hands-on activity to do with elementary school kids," he said.
Three of the Science Ambassadors now want to become teachers, after teaching younger students."We're seeing a lot of benefits from this program," he added.
For Kreitzer's students, the focus was on learning about density, chemical reactions and space.
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| Creating rubber balls |
Three of the Science Ambassadors now want to become teachers, after teaching younger students."We're seeing a lot of benefits from this program," he added.
For Kreitzer's students, the focus was on learning about density, chemical reactions and space.
The space section of
the class involved teaching the children about stars and supernovas, as well as
a painting activity.
Before painting,
Oroville High School science chairman Rich Hogan told the children that the
project had never been taught to elementary students before.
Johnston said one of
the purposes about having the children paint supernovas is to get them thinking
about what each layer of the stars are and what the different colors mean.
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| what do you know about space? |
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| silk painting supernovas |
A supernova is a star, bigger than the sun, that explodes at the end of its life. Johnston told the class that although people generally can't see the colors in a supernova, colors and swirling patterns have been recorded through computer technology.
Given printouts of
different supernovas, which showed a wide array of patterns and colors, the
students picked the example they wanted.Several steps were
involved in the process. First they made swirls
on the silk with a substance called resist-all, which separates the colors of
the dye.
After drying the
resist-all, the children then painted in blues, pinks, greens, yellows and other
colors with dye.With the 33 students
separated into groups, two Science Ambassadors were assigned to help each
group.Some of the children
worked quietly, but many chattered and showed off their work, and all appeared
to have a good time.
Kreitzer has had the
Science Ambassadors in the classroom before, and indicated how pleased he was to
have the teens return."The best part about
this is they're doing experiments that aren't available to do in elementary
school," Kreitzer said. "It gets my kids excited about science."
Staff writer Barbara
Arrigoni can be reached at 533-3136, barrigoni@orovillemr.com, or on Twitter
@OMRBarbara.
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