Eight-year-old Brian Ellerbruch`s first scientific encounter with the center of mass came at the tip of his nose.
He tilted his head back, an instructor placed a small toy made of three sticks and other materials on his nose, and, voila, the odd-shaped toy balanced perfectly.
Brian, a 3rd grader at Gary Elementary School in West Chicago, learned that the balancing point was called the center of mass. The lesson at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Batavia was a bit painful, though, but not because it was difficult to understand.
”Some of them (sticks) hurt your nose,” Brian said. And when the device was also balanced on his ear, he said, ”It`s like getting your ear pierced.” Such was the price of scientific progress when Brian and about 12,500 other students throughout the Chicago area participated in a series of far-flung science field trips sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The organization began holding its six-day annual meeting in Chicago on Thursday.
Elementary and high school students from Chicago`s public and Catholic schools, along with students from West Chicago and Oak Park, visited 12 area science centers where exhibits were designed to show that science can be fun and to dispel the stereotype of science as a profession for nerds in white lab coats doing boring work.
While the two- to three-hour visits came a day after a study showed that American schoolchildren fall below international averages in math and science skills, officials from the science association said the reason they paid for 250 buses to conduct the field trips was to address more far-reaching, practical goals.
”For these kids to exist in today`s world, they must be math and science literate,” said Judy Kass, the association`s outreach director of education and human resource programs. ”It`s a commitment, and increasingly these kids have to have information as our world becomes more complex.”
The association, founded in 1848, is the world`s largest interdisciplinary scientific federation with 132,000 members.
At Fermilab, 577 West Chicago pupils cheered, screamed and applauded to spectacular science demonstrations that included:
– A three-foot flame changing from red to yellow with the mixture of lithium and sodium.
– A high-pressure squirt gun that sprayed them with water.
– A series of smoke rings emanating from a trash-barrel-turned-crucible, acompanied by the loud, funky music from the movie ”Weird Science.”
– A group of four Du Page County high school chemistry teachers, calling themselves the ”Guys of Weird Science” and wearing mock flourescent hard hats, interrupting an introduction by Fermilab education program leader Dave Ablerby by spraying him-and then the assembly-with silly string.
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The irreverent playfulness, by teachers no less, commenced a manic pace that continued throughout the one-hour show. Two teachers in the Weird Science troupe, Lee Marek of Naperville North and Bob Lewis of Downers Grove North, have appeared on ”Late Night with David Letterman” to demonstrate some of their science shows.
At the Museum of Science and Industry, 800 pupils from 4th through 8th grade were taught the science of sports.
In the rotunda, the pupils saw a video starring Michael Jordan on basketball techniques that also delved into the basics of physiology, psychology, genetics and biomechanics.
Then they jumped rope to music from C&C Music Factory and measured their pulses.
”Jumping rope was the most fun,” said 9-year-old Jasmine Murrell. ”But I also learned how to put my finger on my pulse and how to count my heart beat.”
At Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke`s Medical Center in Chicago, Bugs Bunny was swathed in bandages, a few volcanoes hissed ominously and a skeleton skulked nearby.
It was all part of a hands-on science exhibit intended to teach 3- to 5-year-olds a something about chemical reactions, human anatomy and medicine.
”It`s all a lot of fun,” said Reginald Adams, director of community affairs at the medical center. ”We`re trying to turn kids on to science at an early age.”
Four-year-old Gary Tsang found the skeleton particularly delightful, and spent the better part of the morning flapping its mandible. Then he walked to the next station to hear his own heartbeat.
”Put the stethoscope on and press it against your chest,” instructed Sylvia Westbrook, a volunteer at the hospital. ”Not on your right, on your left.” But Gary had already moved on to the bandaged Bugs.
”Nowadays, kids are turning away (from science) because they are not exposed,” Adams said. ”If they`re not exposed, they don`t have a choice. By involving them here, we`re trying to give them a choice.”
And it was important that kids get more interested in science, warned the results of a survey by the Education Testing Service released Wednesday. In that survey, 13-year-olds in the U.S. scored lower in tests of math and science skills than 13-year-olds in South Korea, Taiwan, Switzerland, Hungary, the former Soviet Union, Slovenia, Italy, Israel, Canada, France, Scotland and Spain.