Tag - NAWD

Science of Leadership – Using 2,000 Ping Pong Balls to Blast Kids to Middle School

My oldest son wanted to know if I would come to school on the last day and do a really cool science experiment. Let’s see… hmmm… a legitimate excuse to make a kaboom in front of 130 screaming 5th graders? I’m in. But as I started to think about what I would do, the teacher in me kept whispering, “Do something with the Science of Leadership.” Years ago, with the help of a great friend, Dr. Earl Reum, we created a leadership training curriculum for students called the Science of Leadership. While the curriculum was fun to teach, it was a great excuse to use cool science demos as a metaphor to teach lessons in leadership. Since I seem to have ping pong balls on the brain right now, I thought that I’d try my hand at connecting this blast of energy to these students’ journey to middle school. Here’s what happened…

If you want to learn more about the creative and innovative ways student activities advisors are teaching leadership skills, check out the National Association of Workshop Directors and visit their Facebook page. NAWD is a professional
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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.

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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
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