On Saturday, March 3rd, 2012 The School at Columbia University held its second Science Expo. The Science Expo is collaboration between my K-8 school and the scientists at Columbia University. Every two years beginning in 2010, Columbia University scientists set up an array of learning activities for our students to get kids excited about science. It is an amazing event for children and adults alike. I wanted to share the event here because there were some amazing activities that I think could be adapted for the classroom. I also would encourage all science teachers to make connections to universities. The children benefit from meeting and talking with professional scientists and similarly the scientists learn a lot from trying to engage the children. I was able to also experience the event as a father of two seven year-olds
My children particularly enjoyed an exhibit by Wade McGillis, Claudia Giulivi and Martin Fleisher that was essentially a human salinity test. Each child was given a tray of five paper cups filled with different solutions of water and salt. The options to choose from were fresh water, tear drops, Hudson River water, Atlantic Ocean water and Red Sea water. In reality the solutions were mixtures of table salt and tap water that matched concentration of the specified source. Children could guess which mystery cup went with each source and then they found out how well they did. Not only did this make a very strong impression on the kids about salinity levels in different water sources, it also raised some important inquiry issues. The order of the tasting seemed to affect the reliability. For example if you taste the Atlantic Ocean suddenly the Red sea does not seem as salty as it would if you had the fresh water right before.
At another exhibit Mary Beth Terry an Epidemiologist at Columbia Medical Center squirted a pink liquid onto my daughters hand. Then she was told to go wash her hands and come back. After coming back Dr. Terry used a UV black light flashlight to inspect the quality of her washing. Some kids had some of the liquid still between their fingers. Encouragingly she said that my daughter did a good job washing her hands.
The event speaks to the importance of connections between schools and scientists. I have enclosed the brochure for the event to spark imaginations. Feel free to email me if you have any questions, as I was able to get around to most of the exhibits.
More detailed descriptions of the exhibits
