All about science
Students at Coarsegold Elementary School learn the ins and outs of science at Science Fun Day
BY IRENE THIRLWALL - EDITORIAL@SIERRASTAR.COM

IRENE THIRLWALL
Students make bubble clusters at Coarsegold Elementary School as part of their Science Fun Day. Grades kindergarten through fifth grade participated.

Students in grades six and above are given the opportunity to experiment with science through science fair projects or when older, chemistry and biology classes. However, for grades five and below the students do not have much opportunity for hands-on science learning.

At Coarsegold Elementary School, parents of the advisory committee of the Gifted and Talented Education program, also known as GATE, voiced their concern for the lack of science education for the kindergarten through grade five students. So Science Fun Day was created for students in these lower grade levels to have a day of hands-on science experiments.

“This is the number one activity they thought would be beneficial to the students,” said Stephanie Smittle, GATE coordinator.

“This gives the younger students a chance to celebrate learning and science.”

Smittle is also a second-grade teacher; she has been with Coarsegold Elementary for nine years.

Principal Randy Haggard said there was over 60 volunteers who came to help out with students activities in science. Yosemite High School students from Rob Nobles’ science class came out, parents volunteered their time and seniors from the S.P.I.C.E. (Seniors participating in community education) organization came out and donated their time as well.

Each classroom in the specific grades had three different activities/stations that students were given time at and then asked to switch to another station, getting to experience all three.
In Smittle’s second grade class there were about 21 students and about eight volunteers. The three different activity stations had different titles: Rock Hunt, Sound Camp, and Estimation Jar. At the Rock Hunt station the students closed their eyes and felt rocks in their hands to later describe what they felt. At the Sound Camp station students sat at a table with various tubes filled with different materials. The students had to guess what was inside each tube and then also match it with another tube filled with the same substance. The Estimation Jar station had a jar filled with small objects and the students had to guess how many of the objects filled the jar.

In another room students had a bubble cluster station where they used straws to blow bubble formations in multi-compartment paper plates. In the same room, at another station similar to the Rock Hunt station in the first room, students were blindfolded and then felt different items in their hands and then wrote down what they thought it was.

In other rooms there was a variety of activities including throwing tennis balls by bouncing them off the floor and trying to get them to go in a particular direction.

Later in the day after lunch, some of the Yosemite High School students who volunteered in the morning, put on a chemistry magic show for the elementary students.

Two sixth grade students from the Coarsegold School also got in on the festivities of the day. Gretchen Fruth, 11, and Kathryn Voltmer, 11, worked together to write and photograph an article for the YELP (Yosemite Lakes Park) paper. Smittle said Gretchen had written an article for the YELP before.

“It’s fun; kinda wish I was doing them myself,” Gretchen said of her experience of walking around from class room to class room seeing all the activities. Kathryn said she also enjoyed taking pictures and visiting the other class rooms as well.