Surrounded by six- and seven-year-olds,
Allison Ciolino '98 watches an egg float in salt water.
“What do you think is going on
there?” she asks, her eyes wide as the students at
Saratoga Independent School watch the egg bob. The
students offer a variety of answers until Ciolino, joined
by Professor
of Chemistry Charlie Scaife,
explains the science behind the experiment.
Ciolino is helping with Scaife's
traveling science fair, which he began in 1994 with the
goal of getting young people excited about science.
Scaife got the idea after he visited several local
schools and discussed an experiment he had on board the
Challenger space shuttle, which exploded shortly after
taking off. Elementary school teachers wanted to hear
from anyone associated with the Challenger, and that's
when Scaife saw that many teachers were nervous about
science.
So Scaife and his wife, Priscilla,
loaded their minivan with supplies for “hands
on” experiments — balloons, breakfast cereal,
Elmer's Glue-All, Alka-Selzer tablets, Ziploc bags, and
the like — and made their way across five northeastern
states. The idea was to get students and teachers excited
about “doing science.”
The response was enthusiastic. Not only
did the students and teachers love the program (Scaife
estimates that he has reached 900 teachers and about
25,000 students), The Wall Street Journal did a
page one feature about the traveling scientist. When
Scaife's sabbatical ended, the success of the program
prompted him to continue the science presentations while
juggling a full load of classes.
He quickly learned, however, that he
needed help. Realizing that he was surrounded by the
resource of enthusiastic college students, Scaife taught
a handful of students the methods that he and his wife
had developed and sent them out into local schools.
Teams of two or three students,
sometimes working with Scaife and his wife, visit
classrooms presenting hour-long sessions that include
three or four experiments. The teams then return for an
evening session to set up experiments that the kids use
to show their parents what they learned.
Scaife created the evening session to
encourage family interaction. “By the time the kids
return in the evening with their parents, they are
enthusiastic about what they have already learned during
the day and want to show what they have learned. I feel
that parents often enjoy and learn as much from the
experiments as the students do.”
The enthusiasm of the elementary
students is infectious, and the Union students seem to
love introducing the “magic” of science to
their young students, always telling them to “keep
your eyes open.”
“I just love working with the
kids,” says Aaron Mango '98, who has helped Scaife
with the programs for two years. “You can see the
excitement in their faces.” Indeed, the students'
faces light up with curiosity and awe as Mango performs a
series of experiments that demonstrate differences in
density. As the three liquids settle according to
density, the students pepper him with questions and
explanations for what they are seeing.
All the experiments play into the
natural curiosity of the students. Perhaps one of the
biggest hits at the Saratoga Independent School was an
experiment that turned into a suggestion for April Fool's
Day. To illustrate cohesion, Ciolino filled a Dixie cup
with water, covered it with an index card, and turned it
upside down without spilling any of its contents. Then
Scaife, with a glimmer in his eye, suggested setting the
overturned cup on a countertop at home, leaving it to be
picked up by an unsuspecting April Fool's Day victim. So
watch out parents — it's science at work.