A veteran teacher, Steve Klenke of Plano knows how to capture the attention of nine restless 4th graders corralled into a classroom at Aurora’s SciTech Science and Technology Interactive Center after a six-hour school day.
“Wanna learn how to booby-trap your annoying little brother’s room?” he asks.
“Yes!” the kids respond in unison, eyes and mouths wide open in anticipation.
On this second of 18 weekly, two-hour Neighborhood Kids classes, these students from Aurora’s W.S. Beaupre School are learning about magnets and electricity. Each week, they explore a different topic. Last week was sound and music. Next week, it’s mathematics discovery. All are hands-on, no textbooks and no overhead projectors.
Neighborhood Kids began last school year. It serves 350 4th and 5th graders a year from Beaupre and two other Aurora public schools, the George N. Dieterich School and the L.D. Brady School. It is free for the students.
After creating six-inch lightning bolts by trapping negative electrons in one metal ball, then waving another ball over it, Klenke asks for volunteers to touch. One boy shouts “No way!” and the others shake their heads in agreement. They laugh when Klenke’s finger zaps the bolt, causing sparks to fly.
But the next experiment requires less courage. Klenke gives each child a six-volt battery, two wires with alligator clips on the ends and handfuls of tiny motors, light bulbs and buzzers. They quickly mimic Klenke as he demonstrates how to conduct electricity. The boys favor the buzzers, and the girls fancy the colored lights.
The children don’t know it, but Klenke arrived earlier to test all the buzzers, lights and motors. “I wanted to make sure everything worked. It’s important to their self-esteem,” he says.
Klenke urges them to test different objects to determine which are conductors and which are resistors of electricity. They learn that candles, plastic spoons, combs and balloons are resistors. Conductors include metal forks, keys, paper clips and nails.
“It tickles,” says a ponytailed girl named Yanet as she turns her locket into a conductor to transmit to a vibrating motor. Her friends, Candy and Cindy, giggle as she attaches her alligator clips to her earrings, then her ring, then her barrette.
Then Klenke adds a pressure switch to the lesson, the necessary element for booby-trapping siblings. “You can also use this for a buzzer on your lunch box if someone is stealing your treats while you’re buying milk,” Klenke tells them.
After a cookie break, the children dash upstairs to explore SciTech’s exhibits. As they race from the sand pendulum to the Doppler baseball to the giant bubblemaker, Klenke fields their questions and assures them “there are no right and wrong answers” at SciTech.
“I hope at least one of the kids will go on to be a scientist,” says Klenke, who doubles as a SciTech outreach explainer and a school band teacher. “It only takes one positive experience to spark their interest.”
Neighborhood Kids is a community effort, said SciTech executive director Olivia Diaz. The City of Aurora’s Human Resources Department provides transportation for the children to and from their schools. A $10,000 grant from Aurora’s Mayor’s Youth Study Committee covers program expenses plus a Summer Science Sleuths program last summer for 600 children from eight Aurora schools.
During the school year, one school participates on Wednesday, one on Thursday and one on Friday, each sending up to 15 students at a time. (Klenke’s group was shy a few students who had not yet turned in permission slips.) The schools rotate the children so as many as possible can attend.
“Fourth and 5th grades are the best ages because they can read, and it’s a good time to excite them about science before they choose courses in junior high,” Diaz explained. “Also, as they hit puberty, they are forming their impressions about what’s cool and what isn’t. We want to show them that scientists and science are cool.
“When we ask children to draw a picture of a scientist, they draw the mad scientist — white male with wild hair and pocket protector. By introducing them to scientists who are men and women of different ethnic backgrounds, the kids see role models they can identify with. One woman (scientist) said she had to leave to pick up her children. The girls were so curious; they asked her about her children and her family. They were amazed to learn she was a scientist and a mom too.”
Neighborhood Kids fits perfectly into SciTech’s overall mission to raise science literacy, Diaz said. “From the start, SciTech has worked with teachers and students, at SciTech and at the schools, to instill the children’s appreciation for and interest in science,” she said.
Founded in 1988 and housed in Aurora’s former U.S. Post Office, SciTech is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday. But some children would not visit SciTech if not for the museum’s outreach programs such as Neighborhood Kids. “These are not yuppie parents,” Diaz said of the Neighborhood Kids children’s parents. “They are working; they don’t necessarily have time to take the kids to SciTech.”
Already, Neighborhood Kids draws rave reviews from parents and principals.
Dieterich principal Gwendolyn Miller said her 4th graders’ IGAP (Illinois Goal Assessment Program) science scores increased after attending the program last year. “It dispelled their fear of science when taking the tests,” she said. “After the tests, they told me, `Oh, the science part was easy.’ ” She also credits the program for increasing participation in her school’s science fair last spring.
Brady’s principal, Christie Aird, said: “Our school is about 70 percent ESL (English as a second language). The program helps develop their language because it is hands-on and visual. In fact, last year we had more kids transition from bilingual to English classes than in previous years. I think SciTech was part of it.”
All three schools follow up by asking the SciTech participants to show younger students what they learn. “The 5th graders share what they learned with the 1st and 2nd graders,” Miller said. “That boosts the egos of the older kids and introduces the science concepts to the younger kids.”
But the best testimonials come from the children themselves. Many bring their families to SciTech to show off what they have learned. At least one child started a neighborhood science club after attending the program. One girl wrote Diaz a letter asking that Neighborhood Kids continue for “lots of years.” At the end of the letter, she drew a heart around the words “SciTech is fun science.”
“By coming here (to SciTech), the kids learn that science isn’t something that’s out there somewhere,” Klenke says. “It’s right here in their neighborhood. And it’s fun and wacky.”
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For more information, contact SciTech, 18 W. Benton St., Aurora, Ill. 60506. Telephone: 630-859-3434.
