San Angelo Science Programs Are Lively and Inspiring
What with shark dissecting, robot building and full-on competition at fairs, this isn’t your parents’ science class.
Sixth through eighth-graders in the San Angelo Independent School District spend plenty of time studying life and earth sciences, but gone are the days of the numbingly dull films about various life forms and geological wonders. They’ve been replaced by Web-based learning tools, high-definition movies and plenty of hands-on projects to energize young minds.
“We’re definitely more media driven now, and we do a lot of lab activities three or four times a week,” says Jana Lindley, who teaches eighth-grade science at John H. Glenn Middle School.
“We do have tests, and we do have classwork, but it’s not the old ‘get out the worksheet and get it done’ method.”
Even the dissection has gotten cooler. Back in the day, frogs and worms were the norm. Now the kids get into — literally — critters like sharks.
“They study the entire living-body systems, and then we also move into areas like chemical reactions in the lab, and also study things like force and motion – such as what takes place in a car crash or on a roller coaster,” Lindley says. “We do a lot of physics and recently did an experiment where they made their own sound waves. Everybody thought that one was really cool.”
There’s plenty of extracurricular activity as well. While competing at regional science fairs is mandatory for the sixth grade, as well as pre-advanced placement students in the seventh and eighth grades, it’s voluntary for all others and still draws plenty of interest. The burden is on the student to create the idea, but the teachers stand ready to help hone and refine it.
“We have to OK their experiment, and if they’re not at a certain level, we encourage them to think a little deeper,” Lindley says. “One student said he wanted to test water, but that wasn’t enough. He was asked what else he could do and eventually came up with a method to use organic materials, like lemon juice, to test the PH levels in the local water supply. We just guide them, but it’s their experiment.”
There’s also a loosely formed group that’s interested in robotics, and they meet after school to build robots from Lego-based kits. The idea is to create a machine that can succeed in a certain task, within a certain time frame, at a competition, says Stanley Ratcliffe, who teaches sixth-grade science at Glenn.
“They get some experience in the creation of a program,” Ratcliffe says. “They build and design the robot, then program it, and then test and modify that program to accomplish the task better.”
The idea throughout the day is to get, and keep, students engaged. And if it takes sharks, robots and sound waves to do it, then the teachers are more than willing.
“Science is a whole different animal now,” Lindley says. “It’s a lot more fun, because it’s hands-on. The kids are always excited to have lab, and they’re learning to solve critical problems.”
