Students And Parents Learn Science Together At Hawley

By Jeff White

Last Wednesday, March 29, Hawley School took the place of many basements around Newtown.

Over the years many parents and their children have retreated to these sublevels in their homes to toil tirelessly on the often-dreaded science project. Motors would refuse to turn, handmade compasses would not point out true north, and coins meant to drop in a dish often found obscure cracks in the floor instead. Yet through the many malfunctions that often plague at-home science projects, parents and children always seemed to have a good time building them; they always had a good time working together.

Hawley School harnessed much of what’s good when parents and students work with science together during its third annual Third Grade Family Science Night.

Peter Scott, who attended the event in Hawley’s gymnasium with his son, Spencer, called the 26 different stations “spontaneous.” “It gives you an opportunity to work with your child, teaching them scientific principles,” he said.

Each station held one experiment meant to test or demonstrate one of 11 different process skills that are emphasized in the third grade science curriculum: collecting and recording data, measurement, hypothesizing, drawing conclusions, estimation, observing, communicating, controlling variables, classifying, predicting and inferring, and critical thinking.

Students and their parents went from station to station while fourth grade volunteers spent the night walking families through the different experiments. Science teachers picked the experiments from books and their own research. Debbie Cowden, the school’s math and science specialist, admitted that some of the experiments were too difficult for third graders working alone, but were made challenging because parents could lend a hand. “It’s really neat to see them working together,” she said. “It seems to me that most kids really do love science, so this was a good way to get the parents and kids together at school.”

Students could give “Newton’s Car Test Result” a shot. The experiment, which emphasized Newton’s laws in a not-so-obvious fashion, involved a film canister flung from a slingshot rubber band and being measured against colored straws to see how far it traveled.

The process skill involved in controlling variables was best exemplified in a pendulum test that utilized pencils. Pencils were hung from the table with string of various lengths. After giving each pendulum a nudge, students recorded how many swings each contraption made in a 15-second period. Of course, the smaller the string’s length, the more swings in the allotted time.

Easily the most popular station for the evening was the one involving paper rockets shot from pen tubes and paper helicopters that were dropped from atop chairs. Mary Walsh and her husband, Gene, spent a good portion of their night in this corner of the gymnasium with their son Kevin. The three of them took turns timing the descent of their paper “copters.”

“It’s fun to watch them learn,” said Mrs Walsh as she observed sets of parents and children happily going about the stations. She thought the science night was a fun way to emphasize important scientific lessons. “It’s good to see them thinking and making predictions in a scientific way.”

Kevin Walsh, who says he loves things involving aerodynamics, proved he had a penchant for prediction that night. He had great success predicting whether magnets would attract certain household items at the magnetism station, and he came the closest to guessing the number of jellybeans in the guessing jar.

Spencer Scott said his favorite aspects of science involve working with water. “Probably because I like to sail a lot,” he admitted.

Each station attempted to address modality, said Debbie Cowden. However, those who organized the event did not leave those students interested in other things besides science out of the fun. There were stations, such as a poetry writing workshop, meant for the students who do not gravitate toward science.

Perhaps the highest praise for the evening came from the fourth grade students who gave up their evening to help teach the different experiments. Bijan Hughes was intense as he kept strict control of the timing as parents and other students dropped their paper copters. He cautioned against holding the copters at different heights, as that would influence the results. “If you let them throw [the copters],” Bijan said to participants in the copter station, “then it wouldn’t be very accurate.”

Fair enough, many parents and students concluded.

“I really like [this science night], because I did this last year, so it’s fun,” Bijan explained. “I like science, and I like helping people.”