The crew from Modern Marvels on the History Channel visited our science lab back in July to play with some really cold science experiments. In other words, the liquid nitrogen was flowing and the onions were exploding! Mark your calendars… Modern Marvels: Deep Freeze will officially be airing on the History Channel on Tuesday, September 25th at 8pm EST.

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I love Halloween. One of my favorite activities is to “carve” pumpkins using a simple reation inside the fruit. First, you carve the face then carefully replace pieces. After creating a reaction by generating a gas inside and igniting it (ask your local chemistry teacher for the details) the face pieces are blown off with a small explosion.

Halloween is more than 100 days away and I just couldn’t wait. So I initiated the new weather anchor at the local Denver television station by introducing her to carving watermelons. The problem was, we didn’t really carve the watermelon, it exploded. Watch the Video to see how we skipped right over the carving and went straight to exploding.

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Okay, it’s not science… but I’m so proud that I just had to share it. Mark and Scott are our twin 5 year old boys who have both taken a liking to magic. It probably doesn’t hurt to see their brother Jack (who is now 8 years old) performing his magic tricks on stage. I was recently invited to be a featured speaker at the SPLASH Summer Conference presented by Frog Street Press in Dallas, Texas. Mark and Scott performed this trick on stage in front of almost 1,700 teachers and they had a ball. The boys couldn’t understand why everyone was getting up to leave at the end of their trick. You’ll see why.

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Only a very cool teacher gives this kind of homework to her students… “Using only construction paper and tape, I want you to design a rocket.” Lisa Heaton, the Gifted and Talented teacher showed her students a specially designed rocket launcher made out of PVC plumbing parts from the local hardware store. The idea for the PVC rocket launcher comes from U.S. Space Camp for Educators curriculum. I had the privilege of assisting Mrs. Heaton with the launch of the paper rockets. As the students will share in the comments below, the first launch revealed their design strengths and flaws. The five students with the best launch served as mentors for the rest of the students as they returned to the classroom to repair and redesign their paper rockets. The second launch proved to be the real learning experience - be sure to read comments from the young rocketeers below.

“This rocket launch activity coincides with the students reading Rocket Boys (also known as October Sky) by Homer Hickam. I want these kids to experience first hand the feeling of failure and success through the trial and error process of building their own rockets… and this air-powered rocket launcher does the trick,” says Lisa Heaton as she turns to help a 5th grader repair a rocket that didn’t fair well during the first launch.

These 5th graders are also using this hands-on science experience to learn about the science of blogging (pun intended). Student bloggers from Mrs. Heaton’s class in past years posted blog comments about their rocket experience that were even read by Homer Hickam (the author of October Sky) himself. Be sure to read the student comments below.

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Thousands of science teachers found their way to St. Louis for the 2007 National Science Teachers Association convention, and we wanted to make sure they had something to take back to their students. So, we loaded our trucks with experiments and products from the website along with 5,000 rolls of MENTOS stuffed into plastic test tubes and headed for the Gateway City. We were fortunate to have 14 teacher ambassadors from the Hands-on Science Institute join us in the booth to each share their favorite science activities. Aside from 500 bottles of Diet Coke and a mountain of MENTOS, all eyes were on the 18 foot tall soda eruption chamber. We were demonstrating the new Geyser Tube by triggering a MENTOS geyser as fast as we could set-up a launch (about every 2-3 minutes for 3 full days). At the end of the convention, the soda was gone, the rolls of MENTOS were in the hands of 5,000 teachers, the truck was cleaned out… and we all had a blast. It’s back to the classroom for the 14 ambassadors to start working on cool stuff for next year’s NSTA in Boston.

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The opening day at Toy Fair was amazingly busy for those companies who had cool science product, according to a staff writer from CNET News.com. Caroline McCarthy writes, “Amid the madness of the 2007 American International Toy Fair here, a somewhat unexpected trend was visible: apparently, science rules.” Caroline stopped by the booth yesterday to ask a few questions about our new Geyser Tube toy and, more importantly about general trends in science education. She points out some very interesting observations in her article - teachers should read this.

Despite the perpetual debate over whether the United States is losing ground in raising the world’s best scientists, today’s pop-culture climate is remarkably conducive to making science trendy. The ubiquity of science kits and gadgets at the Toy Fair made me wonder–is science actually cool now?

Even YouTube has its influence. Be Amazing, a toy company that specializes in chemistry sets and licensed products from Steve Spangler Science, was drawing massive crowds with its demonstration of a “geyser” apparatus that allows kids to replicate the Diet Coke and Mentos experiments that have resulted in an explosive (literally) viral video sensation.

There’s no doubt that science products were the talk of Toy Fair this year. In just the first two days of the show, we gave away more than a thousand geyser test tube experiments for people to test out at home. That’s a lot of Diet Coke flying through the air.

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Cynthia Palmer, a very dynamic 5th grade science teacher from Franklin Road Academy, called this morning to share the great news. Her student, Grayson Rosenberger, just won the Bubble Wrap® Competition for Young Inventors. Mrs. Palmer first learned about the contest from our blog post on September 14, 2006. The Bubble Wrap Competition for Young Inventors invited young scientists to exercise their creativity in developing an invention that incorporates Bubble Wrap cushioning.

Listen to the Interview

During our phone call this morning, Cynthia Palmer said, “We’ve got the Today Show here… lots of people are calling… and we’re so proud and excited. Grayson not only won a contest, but he came up with something that will change people’s lives. Who says having fun is not important?!”

The 15-year-old student from Franklin Road Academy in Nashville, Tennessee used Bubble Wrap brand packing material to develop a cost-effective cosmetic skin covering for prosthetic limbs. Later this year, Grayson will visit Ghana with his parents to fit some patients with his low-cost invention.

Grayson received $10,000 in savings bonds as well as a trip to New York, where the Grand Prize Winner will be announced on Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day - January 29, 2007. If you’re science teacher, you should be arguing that Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day be turned into a holiday.

Grayson’s mother, Gracie Rosenberger, lost her legs as the result of injuries suffered in a 1983 traffic accident. Instead of allowing that to defeat her, she and husband Peter founded Standing With Hope, a ministry that reaches out in music and prayer to amputees. They recently expanded outside the U.S. to a clinic in Ghana, where prosthetic legs are custom-built for the poor.

You can listen to my interview with Grayson by clicking on the link below or read the story at the tennessean.com.

Listen to the Interview

 

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It has the potential of being the most popular science fair project of all time. The Mentos Geyser is definitely fun to watch, but some teachers are missing the opportunity to use the activity to teach science. Over the last few weeks, I’ve received emails from students explaining that their teachers are forbidding them from doing the Mentos Geyser as a science project. Why? The common response is… “there’s no science to blowing up pop.”

What? How did these teachers miss the rich science content that oozes from the bottle with every eruption? Combine the strong science with the student’s motivation to want to use the scientific method and you’ve got an amazing activity.

Brian Rice, a math teacher at Gwinn Middle School in Michigan, recently used the Mentos Geyser as a great teaching opportunity. As one of the experiments, the middle schoolers measured how high pop would spray when a Mentos candy is dropped into the pop bottle. In one day, eighth-grade classes and some seventh-grade classes conducted the Mentos and pop experiment with the objective to see whether different types of pops have greater eruptions. They ended up testing a total of 44 different varieties, ranging from Diet Coke to root beer.

This is a great example of science in action. Here’s to Brian Rice - a great teacher who gets it! Instead of forbidding the activity, Mr. Rice uses the Internet sensation to grab his students’ attention and put the scientific method to the test.

Your can read the article that appeared in the Mining Journal on January 8, 2007.

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Our hands-on science team of teachers hit the road and headed to Atlanta for another stop on the 2006 Science Boot Camp Tour. The focus for this Boot Camp was to find creative ways to integrate more science into the teacher’s current curriculum. Among their top concerns was a need for better open-ended inquiry activities that help students learn how to use the scientific method.

Download the Boot Camp Extras HandoutÂ

The large turn out of teachers represented a wide spread in grade levels - pre-K through high school. Dave Edinger attended the Boot Camp from Starr’s Mill High School in Fayetteville, Georgia and commented about his experience talking with a number of teachers who don’t like science because it’s “boring”. He is just one of many teacher trainers out there including Carol Cohen, Andrea Benkel and Tammy Brown who are helping others in the teaching profession rekindle that spark for teaching science. It was also great to see Mary Reik and Chris Freidenstein who have a connection with my televsion co-host in Denver at KUSA-TV, Mark Koebrich. Mary and Chris are Mark’s sisters who are not afraid to attempt any of the demos that Mark tries on television. You can see the video of Chris smacking the eggs into the glasses for the closing demonstration thanks to a cell phone video camera.

What were the marching orders? Devote a minimum of ten minutes a day to teaching science. Give students the opportunity to ask questions, to wonder, to explore and to think like a scientist. The final words were the most important… “Make it big, do it right, give it class!”

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A number of people have asked about origin of the National Hands-on Science Institute (NHOSI). The old website (www.nhosi.com) detailed much of the history of the Institute up to 2003, but the website was never updated after 2003 when NHOSI became Science in the Rockies. Dr. Jim Giulianelli was a great friend who taught me the value of creating teacher training programs that really worked. Much has happened to hands-on science training programs for teachers over the years, and I'm honored to have learned from an incredible science mentor.

About the Institute… In 1990, Dr. Jim Giulianelli, Professor of Chemistry at Regis University, and Dr. Geri Anderson, Professor of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder, shared a common goal for science education in Colorado: To provide elementary and middle school teachers with hands-on science training and to give elementary students the opportunity to explore the excitement of conducting experiments in a laboratory setting. It was early in 1990 when Jim contacted ICE to talk about using the Fun with Chemistry curriculum at Regis University (incidentally, Jim did his post-doctoral work at UWM and this helped open the door of communication with Glen Dirreen).

With permission from ICE, Jim and Geri revised the ICE curriculum to meet their specific needs and created RICE, the Regis Institute of Chemical Education. The focus of the week-long summer training centered around the development of inquiry-based activities for elementary and middle school teachers. In the morning sessions, teachers were introduced to classroom science activities and strategies for incorporating a hands-on approach into their daily teaching routine. Then, teachers were trained to be group leaders for the afternoon Hands-on Science Camp for Kids for which children entering grades 4 to 6 were registered.

Under this model, teachers not only learned about science activities but actually tested out their presentation techniques as they conducted the experiments with children in the afternoon. ICE was interested in this component of the camp because few other institutions in the country were combining this unique teacher training model with a summer camp for children. The end result was that teachers returned to the classroom with tried and tested activities that could be immediately integrated into their present science curriculum. By practicing with children in our controlled setting, much of the fear of teaching new science concepts was circumvented. Over the years, this teacher training model has been so effective that satellite programs have been implemented by teacher participants throughout the country.

Steve Spangler joined the team in 1991 as a curriculum consultant and took a position with the Institute as a co-director in 1992. Steve is well known as an author and designer of science learning tools for some of the biggest names in the education industry. His charismatic style and high energy landed him a contract with NBC television as their "science guy" with a Mr. Wizard style of engaging his audience. Steve serves as a national ambassador for the Institute, recruiting teachers from coast to coast.

Jim and Steve had an amazing chemistry between them that truly inspired teachers to make science education a priority in their classrooms. The focus of the Institute changed in 1995 with a complete redevelopment of the curriculum based on the present needs of elementary teachers. The Institute was renamed the National Hands-on Science Institute (NHOSI) and the focus was solely based on fulfilling the needs and requirements of elementary educators throughout the country.

NHOSI suffered an incredible lost in July of 1995 with the death of Jim Giulianelli. Most people remember Jim not for his research work in physical chemistry or his published solar pond projects, but as an educator who was dedicated to getting people turned on to science. His enthusiasm for learning was contagious. In Jim's absence, Steve refocused the staff's efforts on continuing to offer teachers quality workshops, inspiring children to want to learn more about science, and expanding the opportunities that are available to our past teacher participants through future workshops, guest speakers, science showcases, and our annual gathering of graduates.

Soon after Jim's death, his son, Derek Giulianelli, made a commitment to never allow his father's passion for education disappear. Derek made the decision to enter the teaching profession and is currently a 3rd grade teacher at Willow Creek Elementary in Centennial, Colorado. Derek returns to the Institute each year as a visiting instructor and source of inspiration for the staff and workshop participants.

NHOSI continued to offer summer workshops from 1996 through 2001 at Regis University in Denver, Colorado. Doug Hodous, a dynamic chemistry teacher from Littleton, Colorado, joined the staff in 1996 as an instructor. His 31 years of classroom experience combined with his incredible sense of humor and dedication to teacher training made Doug a perfect addition to the team. The "Doug and Steve" science shows have become a staple of the Institute and continue to get more crazy each year.

Over the years, NHOSI has received grants from the Annenberg Foundation, the National Science Foundation, Amoco, NREL, the Hach Foundation, the Honda Foundation, and many others who are credited on the list of sponsors.

Today, more than 840 teachers have graduated from the National Hands-on Science Institute. Front Range Community College hosted NHOSI in 2003 under the leadership of Dr. Geri Anderson (yes, the same Geri Anderson who help found the Institute in 1990). Geri and the dedicated team at Front Range Community College worked closely with Steve Spangler to obtain funding from a number of wonderful sponsors. Under Geri's leadership, NHOSI received the most financial support in its history and was able to fulfill the training needs of 96 teachers in summer of 2003.

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