Students discussing build with instructor.

Students extracting strawberry DNA.

Student demonstrating forces and motion with a bicycle wheel.

The “Young Newtonians Academy” was held June 21-25, 2010 for rising 5th and 6th graders from Ferguson Easley, Lucile Souders, Warrenwood, and Westarea Elementary Schools in Fayetteville. The goals of the week were to:

• Strengthen academic abilities through exciting problem solving activities
• Provide enrichment activities that will stimulate interest in science and math
• Teach the importance of science and math in our society
• Build self-confidence and self-esteem

Students participated in a variety of activities. Each morning was sent working through the curriculum that accompanies the EdVentures Brick Lab. The curriculum covers Mathematics, Physics, Communication, and Engineering. The students built bridges, walls, wrecking balls, cubes, and more with the bricks. They tried to see how many books the bridge would hold, who’s wall would survive the wrecking ball, and how to calculate the volume of the cube. Then the students were able to take what they learned and create anything they wanted to show their parents at graduation on Friday.

The students also participated in many traditional science labs. They extracted the DNA from strawberries and put it into a small vial that they could wear as a necklace and take home. Students were each able to make their hair stand up while touching a Van der Graff static generator. Some of the students were brave enough to lay on the bed of nails and then later tried to pop a balloon with the nails. Students made their own Cartesian divers out of water bottles and pipets that they were able to take home if they could explain how it worked. Some of the students explored forces and motion using a spinning bicycle wheel. Last but not least, the students each
built a rubberband car out of wooden skewers and
corrugated cardboard.

The week ended with a graduation ceremony and slide show of the week’s pictures. The students left with a greater appreciation for science and hopefully the desire to continue to hone their science skills. Each of the three instructors did an excellent job of reaching each and every child and helping them on their path to a love of science. A special thanks to the instructors, the staff of Luther “Nick” Jeralds Middle School for housing us, and all those who made the academy a success.

This work by The Science House is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.