We salute and thank all of those great teachers out there who find engaging activities to get their students back in the seats and ready to learn for another school year. If you’re a teacher, you know all too well the challenges we face keeping our students engaged and interested. If we’re not careful, it’s easy for some students to disappear into their surroundings and become that “invisible kid.” This segment featured two demonstrations from our Science of Leadership workshop for teachers that use elements of the science demonstration as a metaphor for learning. Oh, by the way, teachers shared their best first days of school activities on our Facebook Fan page this week.
Take a look at our First Days of School Kit with ideas for getting your students excited about the year after the first bell.
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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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.
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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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
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