physics camp

my school was awarded a grant to hold science camp this summer. there are three different camps. last week was engineering camp, this week is physics camp, and next week is environmental sciences camp.

there is a special initiative in arizona to help students get hands on opportunities for science (S.T.E.M. Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). it is also sponsored by the arizona science center.

twenty students were selected for each camp and then at the end they will go on a field trip to the arizona science center, a huge hands-on science center where kids get to play.

i signed up to help with physics camp (yes, michelle, physics camp) to learn more about how to effectively teach elementary students physics. it has been a fun week filled with making homemade solar ovens, windmills, and discussing, circuits, solar energy, renewable and nonrenewable resources, gravity, speed, and motion.

the kids have had nothing but hands on experiences learning about all these concepts and they are here even earlier than the camp starts just to get started. i love this. it is how science should be taught.

i reflect back on my experiences in science, and i really do not remember getting science in elementary school. by the time i got to middle school and high school it took a long time to unlearn all the bad habits and attitudes i had gained toward science.

first of all, i had this idea that science was solely about math, never about having fun, and that you had to be right. although involving a great deal of math, science is fun, and it is definitely not about being right.

i think there are many reasons why elementary teachers avoid science. all are excuses because most (definitely not all) general education teachers have not had great experiences in their own lives relating to science. we do not have the best professional development in science. we take one class about how to teach science and then you are expected to go into the classroom and just know how to teach it, and have all the supplies to do so. we have been so focused on reading and math, forgetting that of course science incorporates reading and math.

luckily, we are getting more and more focused on science, and focused in a good way. we are providing hands-on learning experiences for students. science and math really strike me as something that is best learned outside of a text book. although occasionally handy, experimental and life based is much more meaningful. most educators i know ultimately believe in this. so why is it so hard to convince everyone else (state departments of education, legislators, congressmen and women, etc,) that this is the way it should be?

i am glad i signed up for this week, just to reinforce how we can be facilitating the learning of science so that our students begin to think critically about the world we live in...and have some fun in the process.