October 6, 2004
Toy workshop serious science fun for teachers
Stomp rockets and balloon-propelled cars examples of hands-on teaching projects
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Newspapers and tape, balloons and cardboard, film cans and straws.
These were just some of the ingredients for fun and education used Monday during the Meeting Science Standards by Teaching with Toys workshop. Held at the Great Lakes Water Studies Institute, Dr. Ed Sobey of Redmond, Wash., led the 15 teachers through the class, which included plenty of hands-on time.
First participants built a tower using rolled up newspapers, then they built a stomp rocket using a two-liter pop bottle and bicycle inner tube. A lengthy project was creating a balloon-propelled vehicle, later adding a propeller and then a remote control mechanism.
Throughout the exercises, teachers learned how common household items could spark a child's interest in science.
"The best part of it is everything we've done is very inexpensive, we can do it without asking for more money," said Christine Jenemabi-Johnston, a junior high and high school science teacher at Traverse City Christian School. "In the age group I teach, this stuff loosens them up. The older kids are sometimes too cool and this is fun enough that they will feel interested without feeling like it is beneath them."
The Great Lakes Children's Museum sponsored the workshop, which drew teachers from Tawas City, Whittemore, Elk Rapids and Suttons Bay as well as Traverse City. Mary Manner, director of education for the museum, envisions additional science workshops for teachers.
"My goal down the road is to offer teacher workshops, professional development for teachers, particularly elementary and pre-school teachers, in the area of science," Manner said.
"We didn't have very many teachers from TCAPS [Traverse City Area Public Schools district] but we had a lot from smaller districts," she added. "Then again, they don't have the budget for professional development that TCAPS does."
An enthusiastic devotee of science and fun, Sobey spent part of his career as an oceanographer. Owner of the Northwest Invention Center, he lectures and gives workshops for educators nationwide. He is passionate about giving kids hands-on experience with science, instead of just reading about it in a book or listening to a lecture.
"When kids do PE class, they do some physical activity," he said. "When they do art class, they create some art. When they are in music class, they play music, they don't talk about music or read about music."
This contrasts sharply with the typical educational approach to science.
"We're sort of set up not to do science," he noted of short class times that are filled merely by getting out materials and putting them away. "Right away we stack the deck because science is messy."
Sobey encouraged teachers to get out of their comfort zones and also to get familiar with science. In science, teachers need to feel a hands-on mastery of the material, experiment and concepts because something unexpected will always happen.
"Teachers need to feel comfortable with science," he said. "When you're lecturing you can just go by the book and that's a comfort zone."
Sobey also noted that the current emphasis on standardized testing often dampens enthusiasm for both learning and teaching. Giving children the chance to create, to experiment and to have that moment of discovery fosters learning.
"We want kids to want to learn," he said. "We know what makes any activity fun, research has been done but we don't apply that to learning."
Math teacher Jennifer DeVree appreciated Sobey's hands-on, relevant approach, saying it would appeal to her seventh-grade students at Suttons Bay Middle School.
"Like with making rockets, they could take the results and graph it," she said. "Then if they were making a product, they could see which design is better and use that information to persuade theirs is the best."
"Better that telling them, they would really take ownership," DeVree added.