One of the many hats I wear at my elementary school is the science club teacher. I'm a self professed geek and really love science. My fiance works at the Florida Solar Energy Center as the coordinator of information services which is a fancy way of saying he takes care of a lot of the stuff that goes on with the computers and he redesigned and maintained the website- which is good because he is a computer engineer. Last year I helped judge regional DOE science competitions they held at FSEC. One was the middle school science bowl- (where I actually used my music know how to break a challenge question dispute one of the students had with another judge!) and the other was the Junior Solar Sprint. To see a video about the Junior Solar Sprint, click here. the JSS gave me the idea to start the science club where we are going to build solar cars. Hopefully I'll be able to get a few teams into the race this school year.
Anyway my fiance's best friend is the education specialist at FSEC and they've gotten me tons of cool stuff on loan to use with my club. Today we used solar panels and meters to track how much power they were generating and then we attached a small motor with a propellor and watched the energy flow in action. It was really cool to see these kids so excited! I took some pictures with my iPhone so forgive any resolution issues. Check 'em out.
2 comments:
That's great Kim! I had no idea that you were so talented!
I was commenting about this to Mary tonight, and how I know that you are a super-geek like me. I like bringing science into my classroom, particularly with sound waves and such. For you, it's a good way to reach those kids who just need to get excited about the world around them. So many of your kids have the potential to fall between the cracks. Good luck!!
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