Tag - Dr. Earl Reum

Science Demonstration Gets Student Council Members Excited About Recycling Project

Sure, you can talk about recycling projects, but what can you do to get kids exciting about taking action and changing their behavior when it comes to recycling? That’s the goal put in place by student council members at Wilder Elementary in Littleton, Colorado. On the top of this morning’s agenda was the school-wide recycling project… but with a little twist. President Scott Rob discussed his idea of purchasing recycling bins for the school and increasing everyone’s awareness between now and the end of school. But there’s more…

The student council sponsors and I brainstormed another way to get kids talking about recycling using the Vanishing Styrofoam Peanuts Demo.

Watch the Video

The kids raced to see how many handfuls of Styrofoam peanuts it would take to fill a small container. Everyone guessed two or three… but everyone was wrong. No sooner did the Styrofoam peanuts enter the container they seemed to vanish… literally dissolving away. The secret was a layer of acetone solvent in the bottom of
…

The Science of Leadership – Using Cool Science Demos to Increase Participation in Student Council

In 1996 I was asked to be a student council sponsor at Willow Creek Elementary. We had a problem getting kids to show up to student council meetings at 7.30am.

Working with Dr. Earl Reum, we came up with the idea of using engaging science demonstrations to help illustrate some basic concepts of leadership and team building. We called the program the Science of Leadership – where kids learn how to act as leaders and develop their leadership skills using science experiences. One of our first connections used a classic demo called a Windbag or a Bernoulli Bag to teach the concept of goal setting and the idea of using lots of “outside help” to accomplish what seems to be impossible. A Windbag is a giant plastic bag measuring 8 feet long by 10 inches around. Ask how many breaths it will take to blow up the bag? About 40-50? If you know the secret, you can inflate the giant bag in a single breath. The secret is to hold your mouth away from the bag, breathe, and the fast-moving stream of air from your lungs helps to pull air in from the side. It’s …