Re: Elementary Science demos...

["Daniel L. MacIsaac" <Dan.MacIsaac@nau.edu>]

Dwight,

try and steer your local teachers towards the GEMS curricula (see
http://128.32.190.250/GEMS/GEMS.html )  and consider a copy of the 
ASP's _Universe at Your Fingertips_ (see http://209.24.8.1/ ) for your
teachers or the school library.  My wife and I do a weekly affair for K-2
students for about the last 2.5 years.  The GEMS ASP and some of the AAPT HS
activities (see Morse's book on electrostatics) go over very well, 
and usually the regular teacher will do more science after watching you do
some and seeing their students having fun.  (Plus they have an expert on 
call -- just having you regularly makes a big motivational difference.)
The curricula are outstanding, and you can't photocopy the ASP stuff cheaper
than buying it directly.

We insist students keep a notebook (even kindergarten) and use a new page
every science class -- usually to draw the apparatus and write a few key
words.  We then do the experiment (usually each student builds something
individually) and this completes the hour.  We usually ask the teacher to have
the students write on their experiences later that week and then move on 
to the next activity on the same theme the next week.  The cycle always 
seems to go draw - vocabulary - build - discuss - document.  My fave
activities are the electrostatics stuff, the ASP activities and the GEMS 
bubbleology and lenses books.  Some activities have minor homework; the
astronomy stuff is best of all here -- like tracking moon phases etc.

The youngest of the kids also like to have part of the lesson accupied
by reading aloud from one of the Scholatic _Magic School Bus_ books (a 
painful read, with more asides than my lectures) or better yet one of the
Frank Bromley books.  The reading makes a nice reward for patient work.  
The children also love showing how their apparatus works or how an idea
works to younger kids, so it's nice if a younger class can join in at the end
of particularly successful activities so the older kids can flaunt their
stuff.

KF (my wife) and I take turns (very helpful and the spelling off can 
considerably help your sanity maintenance -- bring your fave headache cure
in a bottle and be firm), and we usually wind up buying some small
amount of materials or curricular books for the school, then claiming it
on taxes.  Best wishes, and you're doing something very worthwhile.

Dan M

Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Northern AZ Univ
danmac@nau.edu  http://www.phy.nau.edu/~danmac/homepage.html
> 	Greetings everyone!  I was wondering if someone could offer me
> some advice.  Our school's elementary had asked me to have my students
> come over and present the elementary students with some hands-on science
> demos.  My students will be going into 1st - 3rd grade classes and will
> be in there for about 1 hour.
> 	Has anyone done this with their students?  Can anyone offer some
> advice?  Can anyone offer some science demos that are safe, interesting,
> and don't require any "special" equipment?
> 	Any information would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Dwight
> dsouder@juno.com