Location: McCormick Elementary School
Date: Saturday, January 25, 2014; 10:00 am-12:30 pm
It was only a few short hours
from when he had dropped me home that Wilson picked me up for this
project. After picking up another
volunteer we arrived at McCormick to find several volunteers waiting outside
in the cold and snow. They always
open the doors exactly at 10 am, even though there are people already in the
school. When the doors finally
opened, we went inside and assembled in the activity room. As usual, people had gathered for all
sorts of projects, including ‘Read With
Me’, ‘Chicago History’ and Wilson’s ‘Adventures
In Math’. Soon every other
group left and the only ones remaining were those attending the ‘Young Scientists’ project. Maureen said that today we would be
helping the kids prepare for ‘ISAT’
examination and then reviewing last times ‘Acid/Base’
experiment. Following this, we
would be performing the ‘Birdseed Mining’
experiment and ‘Can you lift it?’ I had done the mining experiment at
Henderson 'Mad Scientists' project and it had been a lot of fun. Looks like Chicago Cares was
distributing the same ideas to all schools, and why not.
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| 'Birdseed Mining' |
I helped get the supplies out
from the closet and then prepare the 5 pans for the mining activity. This included putting random numbers of
silver, gold, blue and white beads in the pans, and then filling up with
different types of birdseeds. Soon
the kids arrived and I recognized Sandra from last time and so did she. Once again, her nametag was missing and
while some other kids would have been upset at this, Sandra is a very calm
person who didn’t seem to get bothered by this. I sat down with her and at our table were 3 other boys, and
a volunteer named Tegan. We started
with ‘ISAT’ questions and Maureen
told us to only go till Question 20.
All of these were multiple choices with 4 possible answers. The idea was for us to drive the kids
towards the right answer through a process of elimination. Tegan was helping Sandra, so
I turned my attention to the boy next to me. He seemed receptive to coaching and we had fun solving the
questions, some of which had graphs for data interpretation, some were picture-based
questions and others just required careful reading. We managed to do 13 till the time expired, and then Maureen
went over the first 10 answers with us – all of which we had answered
correctly.
 |
| The dreaded "reclamation" beads |
Next, we reviewed last weeks ‘Acid/Base’ experiment by identifying if the items on Maureen’s
chart were Acid, Base or Neutral.
There were choices like vinegar, lemon juice, baking soda, laundry
detergent, water etc. We did this
together as a group and it helped reinforce with the kids what they had learned
the previous week. Then it was
time for the ‘Birdseed Mining’ experiment
and Maureen started by asking everyone what one can find inside a mine. The answers ranged from things such as “Gold”, “Copper”, “Diamonds”, “Minerals”
and someone even said, “Money”! In this game, each colored bead was
worth some dollar amount, for example gold was $5, blue and silver were $3
each; and pumpkin seeds were $2.
The rest of the seeds were worthless, while a white bead carried a “reclamation penalty” of negative $50. This meant that we were hoping to avoid
getting white! We dug in and
started mining. I told everyone in
our group to not neglect pumpkin seeds since they add up. Unfortunately, we had received a pan
with many white beads and our penalties were adding up. Around us there was complete chaos and
madness and the kids really got in to this activity. We started counting our “profits”
and in the end our total count was $741, which included 314 pumpkin seeds. However, we had to pay a reclamation
penalty of $500, meaning we walked home with $241. I asked everyone how much each of us had made and I said
lets give $1 for parking, so that we could easily divide $240 between the 6 of
us. Sandra and boys did the
division and came up with the right answer. We had finished last due to our reclamation costs and I said
to the group not to worry since we were the “Clean-up
crew” and doing a job that nobody wants!
 |
| Can you lift it? |
Next we had a short break and I asked everyone about their favorite subjects and almost everyone said Science or Math. The boy next to me said that he also
liked Social Studies and I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said he wanted to be a Soccer
player. I said that he would
certainly make more money that way rather than as a scientist or a
politician! But once he retires,
he could use one of those skills for a second career. Our next experiment was to see if we could lift ice cubes
using a string. The idea was to
place the string on the cubes and then adding salt to lower the freezing
temperature. The string would then freeze and we could lift the ice cube with
the two ends. All the kids loved
it and everyone managed to lift up their ice cube. Maureen told the kids to amaze their friends and family with
this trick and not tell anyone about the salt. I could see this becoming a neat trick during parties.
During the clean up I tied the strings together and played the
string twist game where you put your hand through it, get tied and then after
passing your hand through the other loop, you get un-entangled. The kids liked this one and Tegan took
it to another level with creative designs. We still had 15 minutes to go and so Maureen decided to do a ‘Science Bingo’ game. She gave out Bingo sheets with 25
squares and a list with 41 science words.
The kids could put any 24 words on their sheet in any order – 1 was free
space – and then Maureen would read out the definitions of the words and if you
had it on a square, you could mark it. I worked with Sandra in selecting the
words and she was choosing the ones she wanted. She was also careful in ensuring that all the words were spelled
correctly, taking her time to be perfect.
We then played for one round after which we had one winner. The time was up and the kids formed a line,
thanked us and left. The volunteers cleaned up, storing the tables, and then
Maureen did a reflection where everyone had something positive to say. She announced a field trip to 'Adler Planetarium' in February and I said that I would try to attend that one. Tegan had been fantastic to work with, and Sandra had been as sweet as before. I wished everyone and then left with Wilson for our next
project. No rest for the weary I guess, but who's complaining.
*All the client's names have been changed in order to respect
their privacy
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