Ooops… that should have read… Freezing an Unforgettable Science Experience in the Minds of Young Children (but the first one is so much more catchy…)

I spend a lot of time training early childhood teachers in ways to make science more fun and meaningful in their classrooms. Gone are the days of collecting leaves in a plastic baggie and calling it science. Today, the best early childhood professionals are pulling out the stops and do everything possible to expose their children to real science. Of course, with real science comes real fun. Nan Papiernik and Beth Dovenspike from Colorado College Children’s Center are both amazing early childhood science teachers who are reaching out to the community and finding real science experience for their children. Nan and Beth called upon Professor Kristina Lang from Colorado College to introduce children to the concept of changing temperature to make things freeze. What could be better than using liquid nitrogen to make ice cream?

The genius part of this strategy is… Read the rest of this entry »

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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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Just the thought is scary… but I’m talking about the popular show Unwrapped on the Food Network. Producers from the show called to see if they could get a better look at the science behind the Mentos Geyser Experiment and to see if they could get a sneak peek at our new line of Geyser Tube toys. Not only did they get an up close view of the spewing soda geyser, the crew learned how to cook with 20 liters of liquid nitrogen.

I forgot to mention to the photographer, Andy McDonald, that he and his expensive HD camera would disappear in a giant cloud of smoke when I poured out the liquid nitrogen. The good news is that no one died when we wrapped up the day with a round of exploding, self-carving pumpkins.

We’ll let you know when the Food Network announces the air date.

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