Tag - teaching science

Teachers Making a Difference – Mrs. Z and her Oobleck Pool of Goo

Some teachers teach from the book and others make learning come alive. Judie Zoromski, or Mrs. Z,  (say it fast and she’s called Mizzy), teaches science at Mary, Seat of Wisdom Grade School in Park Ridge, Illinois.

She is one of those teachers who gets it home to the dinner table. Her Friday Finale lessons make the “kids and their families live science.”

Mrs. Z taught for six years then took some time off to raise a daughter. When she went back to the classroom, she taught second grade for two years, fifth grade for two years and then “landed” in junior high science. She teaches 7th grade biology and 8th grade physics and chemistry.

She describes herself by saying, “as a person and a teacher I like to bring things to life and create a lot of excitement.”

When taking the science teaching job, Mrs. Z didn’t sit down and start writing out lesson plans, instead she looked for ways to make an impact on her students’ lives. In her research, she discovered our website, SteveSpanglerScience.com and from that Mrs.
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Ellen DeGeneres Wants Giant Smoke Rings!

It’s official… I’m flying out to be a guest on the Ellen DeGeneres Show next week. Back in April of 2006 when a producer on the show originally contacted our office, I asked for your suggestions on experiments to do with Ellen. Lots of people suggested my Smoke Rings demo and Ellen might have taken your suggestion (hint, hint). Let’s just say that our office was filled with lots of smoke today as someone practiced shooting cups off of everyone’s head. We’re told that the air date will be next Friday, September 21, 2007. More to come.

A Look Inside Our Lab on Modern Marvels

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.

Spangler Unwrapped: Mintastic Episode Airs in September

Tune into Food Network’s Unwrapped to get a peek inside the Spangler Science labs as Steve shares the science behind the Mentos Geyser all of that exploding soda. Back in December, I mentioned that a crew from Unwrapped on the Food Network wanted to get the real scoop on the popular Mentos and soda reaction. The crew spent an entire day grabbing the reaction from every angle and trying to understand how all of those tiny bubbles produce such a huge fountain of soda. The episode is scheduled to air on September 24, 2007. Consult your local listing for time and channel.

500 Soda Geysers at NSTA Convention

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
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