What happens when you put 150 teachers from 23 states and three countries in the same room for three days with a team of instructors who are over-the-top excited about teaching science? Enthusiasm for making science fun spreads like a virus. Concerns about test scores, curriculum changes or the ever-changing pressures of being a teacher seem to vanish. For three days, these teachers put their worries aside and focus on ways to bring wonder, discovery and exploration back into their classrooms. Here’s a glimpse at what happened at Science in the Rockies this year…

Not all of the participants who come to Science in the Rockies start out loving science. Hilary Vanderveen admits she was a student who didn’t like science all that much, but this experience taught her how to avoid that attitude in her classroom. Vanderveen believes the key is raising the “I wonder factor” in her students’ minds as they approach various scientific questions.

To the untrained eye, it might look like teaching science is all fun and games, but there’s a serious side to all of this fun. Many of the participants at this year’s event shared the same fears and concerns that were raised even three years ago - science education is slowly becoming an extra-curricular activity in many schools across the country. With so much pressure being put on reading, writing and math scores on state achievement tests, some elementary teachers are forced to put science on the back burner until early Spring when state testing in other curriculum areas is finished. With help from the instructional team at Science in the Rockies, our goal is to help teachers focus their efforts on integrating science into their everyday

curriculum.

Wendy Liddell came all the way from New Zealand to Science in the Rockies to bring back ideas for the science class she teaches in Singapore. “When a teacher is inspired by science, the children are inspired. Children’s minds are the most wonderful gift that we have. The children that we teach today are our future. The ideas, the philosophies and the inspirations that we give them will be the world that we have in the next century,” says Liddell.

Popularity: 11% [?]

The Mentos Geyser made history once again as the star attraction at the NAEYC 2006 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Over the rumble of the crowd in the exhibit hall, you could hear someone from the Spangler Science booth yell, “GEYSER!” followed by a few screams and cheers of excitement. The “geyser” was actually the eruption of a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke powered by Mentos. As soon as people approached the booth and saw the mountain of soda and the display of Mentos, they knew what could happen… but most people didn’t believe that we would actually launch the geysers from behind the booth. Surprise!

Instead of just launching the Diet Coke just for fun sake, we used each opportunity to deliver a quick science lesson and followed it up by putting one of our Geyser Tube Experiments in each of the teacher’s hands. Out of the 11,000 people reported to be in attendance at the event, we personally handed out 7,000 Geyser Tube Experiments (which included a roll of Mentos). We even had a few guest “geyserists” take center stage in the booth and try their hand at a launch.

This is not the first time these educators had seen or performed our Mentos Geyser which was featured on stage three years ago in Anaheim, California at the 2003 NAEYC Conference. One teacher commented, “We’ve been doing this experiment for the past three years, and it took the rest of the world this long to catch up!”

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It was easy to see that this Steve Spangler session at the NAEYC 2006 Conference was going to be a little different. The stage was filled with the usual Spangler stuff… a vacuum cleaner, eggs, a saw, bowling balls, toilet paper rolls, giant bags, an aquarium of water, a violin bow, plenty of Alka-Seltzer, potatoes, Diet Coke and, of course, Mentos. Even before Bobbi finished the introduction, there were Mentos Geysers erupting and people running!

My thanks to everyone who attended my session at the NAEYC 2006 conference in Atlanta, Georgia. You’ll find links to the experiments and activities that I shared during the session as well as a few favorites that didn’t make it into the list of 20 Cool Science Activities Under $20. Click on the link below to download a PDF of the session handout:

Steve Spangler’s NAEYC 2006 Handout

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There is an urban myth spreading via the Internet that a little boy in Brazil died after eating Mentos and drinking Diet Coke. As far as we know this is just a rumor. I’ve checked with my Mentos contacts and no one can show any proof of this being true. The writers at snopes.com posted a great article on the Mentos reaction and even reference us as part of the scientific rationale for why the rumor isn’t true.

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The National Science Teachers Association hosted a special day for PreK-2 teachers who want to make science more fun, more hands-on and more integrated into their teaching experiences. The Science for Young Learners Day was the brainchild of Bill Ritz, Professor Emeritus at California State University and the Conference Chairperson for the 54th Annual NSTA Conference in Anaheim, California (April 6-9, 2006). Bill Ritz and his conference planning committee invited me to help them kick-off the day as their morning keynote speaker.

Download a special handout from the morning keynote.

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Popularity: 3% [?]