Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 26, 1993 TAG: 9301260119
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Medium
BIOLOGY GRABS VISITING STUDENTS' ATTENTION
Students from Washington County proved typical in what classes they wanted to sample during a visit to the Southwest Virginia Governor's School last week.Although the school staff gave presentations to the 37 Holston High School students in subjects ranging from computers to chemistry, the class that most of the students wanted to visit first was biology.
"They fought for this class because everybody wanted to be in with the animals," explained Sue Bell, who directs the program for advanced students at Holston High in Damascus.
The visitors did, indeed, become acquainted with members of the animal kingdom that they don't see every day.
School Director Pat Duncan, who teaches biology, had the students eyeball-to-eyeball with furry rats being used for science experiments. The Zuccher Fat rodents - bred for obesity for experimental purposes - visited each table where students were seated and seemed right at home.
Not every student wanted to handle Rameses, the classroom's ball python, when Duncan got him out of his cage. The feeling was mutual; Rameses declined to uncoil for the visitors.
Charlotte, a tarantula, was observed from the outside of her container.
Pepo, an iguana, was not a bit happy about being pulled out of his cage away from his meal of kale and grapes. Duncan put him down on the classroom floor when he insisted on thrashing around in her hands.
Then Duncan returned to the front of the room to continue her lecture on the food chain, the places in it of herbivores, carnivores and omnivores, and what kind of life fell into those three categories.
The students closest to the front gave her their full attention. Those in the back cast occasional glances over their shoulders to make sure Pepo wasn't sneaking up on them.
No problem: Pepo scurried back into the open glass door of his cage at the first opportunity and stayed there for the rest of the class.
Other classes proved equally fascinating. In Woodrow McKenzie's chemistry class, for example, students got to fire off rockets - very tiny ones, to be sure, but still rockets.
They did so by separating hydrogen and oxygen from zinc and hydrochloric acid and collecting the hydrogen in tiny glass tubes. It proved a quick-burning fuel when placed on a hand-held igniter, sending each rocket fizzing to the ceiling.
Bell said the students realized that Washington County is too far away from Pulaski County for them to commute to this Governor's School. But they wanted to see what it offered, anticipating a similar school being established farther west in the state. "Hopefully, there will be one eventually," Bell said.
Duncan said this school still can benefit students in far Southwest Virginia. It provides in-service training for teachers from beyond its service area, and can loan equipment use in other schools.