Advanced chemistry students from Plymouth High School recently conducted a series of experiments with students at Fairview Elementary School to teach them about molecules.
Guided by about 40 chemistry students, about 150 second-, third- and fourth-graders performed a number of experiments, including several that involved color change and separation.
The Fairview students then watched the chemistry students do several spectacular experiments, including a grand finale involving dropping a match into a water cooler bottle coated with alcohol to produce a blue flame and rush of hot air that rattled the ceiling tiles.
Students in Jay Grosshuesch’s advanced chemistry class have been doing the elementary experiments for about a dozen years, ever since his own children were students at Fairview. Some of the chemistry students leading the most recent experiments had participated in them while students at Fairveiw.
The chemistry students practice the experiments ahead of time, discussing the scientific principles behind each so they are prepared to field the inevitable questions from the younger students, Mr. Grosshuesch said.
He hopes the experience excites elementary kids about science and exposes them to experiments that would be difficult to do in an elementary building with one teacher in charge of 20-some kids. He also hopes the exposure to science the experiments offer will allow the students to make connections and ask questions about other topics they encounter in their science classes.
The experiments are inquiry based and hypothesis tested, which is why learning occurs, said Mary Vanderkin, whose third-graders participated in the experiments.
“They get the opportunity to do ‘hands on’ experiments that are not only exciting, but ones they can understand the process for and often figure out the reasons why they get the outcomes they do,” Mrs. Vanderkin said.
The district science curriculum has become increasingly hands on, from elementary school through high school.
“Teachers take on the role of a facilitator and guide to the students’ learning, compared to the role of the provider of knowledge,” said Ken Dunbar, PHS science teacher.
Mr. Dunbar also serves as an instructional coach, helping train elementary school teachers to present science in a way that allows students to make discoveries for themselves.
Students observe the natural world and ask questions about their observations, Mr. Dunbar said. They can then apply the scientific method to finding the answers to their questions.
This approach leads to increased student engagement, student learning and mastery of science concepts, Mr. Dunbar said.
“More so now than before, students are able to design, build and research the topics that they are specifically interested in that correlate to our curriculum goals, while simultaneously developing skills in the process of science.”
In Mr. Dunbar’s biotechnology class, students recently altered bacteria to make them bioluminesce in UV light. The students follow the genetic transformation of the bacteria with a protein purification process, very similar to the process used by the biotech industry when it harvests insulin mass produced by bacteria and then used by diabetics.
“The fact that students at the high school level have access to biotechnology that allows them to genetically transform an organism is extremely exciting,” Mr. Dunbar said.
