Meet a Scientist

As Marietta College chemistry professor Kevin Pate moved from taking questions to doing demonstrations Thursday morning, a Phillips Elementary School fifth-grader raised her hand.

"Are you going to make something explode?" she asked.

"That'd be scary," Pate said, before adding, "Maybe you can talk me into it later."

The children didn't have to make much of an effort. After bursting a balloon using a candle, then demonstrating how water in a second balloon absorbed the heat from the flame and kept that one intact, Pate let a third balloon float up in the air on a string. The students guessed that balloon was filled with helium, but Pate suggested another, more flammable possibility - hydrogen.

"If they'd filled up the Hindenburg with helium, it wouldn't have exploded," he told the students.

Turning out the lights, Pate touched the candle, attached to a yardstick, against the balloon, and a small fireball illuminated the room, answering the question.

Article Photos

EVAN BEVINS The Marietta Times
Phillips Elementary fifth-grader Evan Hill, front, laughs as classmate Jagerd Schwaben reaches around him to hold a turtle named Leonardo during the Meet a Scientist Day event at Marietta College Thursday. Schwaben was worried the turtle might bite him.

"That was awesome!" one child shouted.

"So who wants to be a scientist now?" Pate asked.

Pate was one of several Marietta College professors sharing their skills, materials and knowledge with about 200 fifth-graders from all four Marietta City elementary schools for "Meet a Scientist Day" Thursday. It was the culmination of the year-long MC Squared program, in which college professors collaborate with elementary teachers to create educational science activities for students in various grades.

The goal of the day was to broaden students' perspectives about science and even get them thinking about career possibilities, said Tasha Werry, Race to the Top and Teacher Incentive Fund coordinator for Marietta City Schools.

Fifth grade might seem a bit early to be considering such options, but Werry said it ties in with the new federal Common Core standards the state is implementing, which emphasize college and career readiness indicators.

"I want them to understand that if there's something they really like in their science class, there are professors here who do that for a living," she said.

When Pate asked students what they thought chemists did, he got answers like "make potions," "mess around with chemicals" and "make chemical bombs." He explained people could use their skills in chemistry in the military, environmental work, teaching and the medical field.

"Lots of doctors ... start out as chemists, they learn the chemistry, they go on to become doctors," he said.

Pate said he wants children to see science careers in a new light, so he emphasizes the "wow" factor in demonstrations like Thursday's and in his work with first- and fourth-graders both on campus and in their schools through the MC Squared program.

"I think science can often have a connotation of being not fun, boring, sitting in a lab, writing stuff down," he said.

That's definitely not the kind of career Putnam Elementary fifth-grader Madi Moore has in mind. She wants to be a research biologist, working to cure diseases.

"I don't want to be one of those scientists that sits in the lab all day. I want to be the person that goes out in the rain forest and finds all that stuff," she said.

And that came before Moore had gotten to spend any time with the professors. Some of her peers admitted they hadn't really considered a science career until they visited some of the college classrooms.

Washington Elementary fifth-graders Seth Radabaugh and Ethan Harris expressed interest in jobs in the technology field after seeing a demonstration of robotics.

"I thought of being a policeman before all that," Harris said.

Students also toured the college's greenhouse, worked with models of skeletons and bodily systems in a biology classroom and looked at fossils. In addition, each group of students took a tour of the campus, visiting the library, campus police department, a residence hall and more.

"The windmill was pretty cool," said Harmar fifth-grader Levi Ottney, who hadn't previously spotted the latest addition to the college's skyline - a 55-foot-tall, electricity-generating wind turbine. "I like that it was a different way to support power."

The campus tour was aimed at getting students to consider another aspect of their future: college. Werry noted there are still students in the school system who could be the first generation in their family to go to college.

"This is a chance to make sure 100 percent of the kids get the opportunity to see what college is like," she said.

While finding science interesting and even fun may help children become more invested in the classroom, the emphasis of the day was less on improving test scores than on getting children to think about the future.

According to National Assessment of Educational Progress results released Thursday, 38 percent of Ohio eighth-graders achieved "proficient" or better science scores in 2011, an increase from 37 percent in 2009. That's higher than the national rate of 29 percent.