Are you smarter than your grade-schooler? SFlb

By Harold Gwin

1“I liked the turtles,” chimed in Tiasia May. “They have to sit on the log to get warm.”

Tiasia said she has a turtle of her own at home, one that came from a store, not a pond.

The two young people were among the 81 fifth-graders at P. Ross Berry Middle School taking part in what might be described as an outdoor science laboratory experiment last week to help get them ready for this week’s Ohio Achievement Test in science.

Berry wasn’t the only school involved.

The project brought every fifth-grader from all city schools to Mill Creek for a day.

This week kicks off the annual series of achievement tests given to all pupils in third through eighth grade in Ohio. Depending on grade level, children might be taking math, reading, writing, science and social studies tests to assess what they know.

The results show up as part of each school’s state local report card in August.

The Mill Creek science lab is a collaboration between the city schools and the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at Youngstown State University and focuses on physical science, earth and space science and life science.

The goal is to help the fifth-graders perform well on the OAT science test, said Cathy Constance, the school district’s supervisor of science.

The city schools and YSU have an ongoing partnership through the Mahoning River Education Project and this effort is an extension of that seven-year partnership, said Holly Burnett-Hanley, a research associate with the Center for Urban and Regional Studies.

A Wean Foundation grant picked up the tab for the Mill Creek program.

It’s an academically integrated program, Constance said, explaining that, although the focus is on science, reading, writing and other academic abilities are required if a pupil is to perform well.

Burnett-Hanley said 70 percent of Ohio’s fifth-graders failed to score the minimum passing grade on last year’s OAT science test, the first year that it was administered to that grade level.

The Mill Creek project involves hands-on activities bench-marked to the fifth-grade state academic standards for science, she said.

Those activities included an ecosystem hike around the Lily Pond, a hands-on examination of the food chain, a demonstration of our solar system that had children carrying balls representing the planets spread 100 yards across a field and experiments with electricity, thermal energy, sound, force and motion and much more.

Retired teachers and substitute teaches — all with middle school experience — and some students from Chaney High School were serving as facilitators for the various activities while the Berry pupils were in the park.

Jacqueline Taylor, a member of the city school board, visited Mill Creek to see what the Berry pupils were doing.

“This should help,” she said, noting that it gave them some hands-on experience and kept their focus and attention.

Sometimes it can get a little boring in the classroom, Taylor said.

It was a one-day science refresher course that is hoped will help the children on their test, Constance said. Giving them hands-on experience helps them remember, she said.

“Hopefully, it will reinforce some of the concepts for them,” Constance said.

Tiasia said she thinks it will help.

“I learned a lot,” she said.

gwin@vindy.com