Science teachers inspire children

By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Perhaps our best hopes for the future lie in this: a roomful of eighth-graders cheerfully singing a song about atoms to the tune of the old "Adams Family" TV sitcom.
Or maybe they dwell with a group of fourth-graders hunched over microscopes as they examine cells lifted from their skin with a piece of tape.
Some of these children might grow up to be doctors, researchers, engineers and scientists.
For kindling the spark that awakens an interest in science, we often can thank teachers, especially those who elevate their instruction to a higher level.
The Ohio Academy of Science annually recognizes educators who do a particularly good job of teaching science. Those honored this year include several from the Mahoning Valley.
Reaching potential
In Youngstown, award-winning teachers Sharon Ragan, Patricia Nelms and Nora McDevitt, gathered one morning at West Elementary School and discussed helping pupils reach their potential.
"We're not going to put up with expecting less from our children," said McDevitt. "We're tough on them, and they can handle it."
The three women promote hands-on science teaching. Rather than reciting dry lectures before bored rows of children, they engage their pupils' senses of sight, touch, hearing and smell.
"We try to help them discover the 'why' behind science," said Ragan, the teacher who had pupils peer at their skin through microscopes.
The hands-on method doesn't have to be fancy or expensive.
McDevitt picked up a four-foot-long pine board from a corner. She has her pupils roll miniature cars down the plank to school them in the concepts of velocity and mass.
The teachers inspire children's curiosity about the natural world, then guide them in harnessing that inquisitiveness to carefully structured experiments.
"We didn't just read a book. We did investigations," sixth-grader Rakia Levesque said as she described her science project, which entailed using light bulbs to explore circuits.
With the learning comes pride. "They feel good about themselves because they're succeeding in science," McDevitt said.
Hands-on learning
Neal Middle School stands among flat farmland and wood lots in Trumbull County's Fowler Township.
Inside the 1922 structure, Susan Olive's seventh-graders ambled into class and inspected their terrariums, which rested on a shelf near the windows. After peering inside the mini-ecosystems, the pupils jotted notes on their observations and took their seats.
The day's lesson was about species variation, a complex concept that Olive demonstrated by having her pupils tear apart green beans and record the number of seeds each pod contained.
Digging into the vegetables with fingers and scissors, the class seemed absorbed in the experiment. One boy chewed on a bean while he worked.
Like her peers, Olive said she is convinced that hands-on science works best, especially for a generation weaned on the instant stimulation of television and video games.
Science "is a challenge. It takes time, and they're not used to that," Olive said.
Down the hall, Bethany DelGarbino teaches math and science to Neal's sixth- and seventh-graders.
Next to her desk was an overhead projector and a white foam ball impaled on a stick. She uses the equipment to demonstrate a lunar eclipse.
Teaching science does more than impart facts; it also can alter children's views. "Some kids don't realize how big the universe is. Science gets them out of the 'me' focus and helps them explore the world around them," DelGarbino said.
Frivolity
Sharon Nicastro, a teacher at St. Joseph Elementary School in Austintown, said she tries to leaven science facts with frivolity.
It was her students who sang the atom song.
"She makes it fun," eighth-grader Emily Corsale said of Nicastro. "Science was not one of my strong subjects," Emily said. But, with Nicastro's help, she's improved at it and is enjoying it more, the girl added.
Humor helps children absorb the lessons, Nicastro said. But there's a serious side to her teaching.
"I'm getting old," she said. "I want to know someone's out there who can take care of me. Science teachers owe it to society to pull these kids up to a standard" that prepares them for the challenges of tomorrow.