THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 5, 1995 TAG: 9505040142
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY GARY EDWARDS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
Becky Cooper, Nikki Lopresti, Katy Smead and Megan Cheatham spent several hours seesawing last Saturday, but the Thalia Elementary third-graders' activity was far from typical.
What made it unique was the location and reason for the ride. The four girls were enjoying their ride in a second-floor classroom at Larkspur Middle School all in the name of scientific study.
Down the hall, Arielle Walters, Angela O'Leary and Chris Hinson of Birdneck Elementary School were traveling around the world - visiting peers in Israel, Sweden, Australia and Canada - though they're still too young to even have a driver's license.
And Kevin Furrow was downstairs in the gymnasium dropping water on a row of pennies with an eyedropper. The 11-year-old fifth-grader at Windsor Oaks Elementary School silently mouthed the number of each drop as it formed a bubble on the coin.
Far from being frivolous, the activities were part of the inaugural Festival of Science for the Virginia Beach Public Schools, said Cathy Peyton, science education coordinator for elementary schools. In all, 150 students from 55 schools at all levels participated in the festival from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Skip McLamb and Barbara Davis, Peyton's counterparts at the middle school and high school level, spent the day bustling between exhibits, experiments and competitions, which were watched by about 800 attendees.
``Much work went into pulling this together,'' said Peyton, ``so it's very gratifying to see the interest and the turnout. Many parents and quite a few teachers are here.''
The Thalia third-graders tossed around terms such as force, load, fulcrum and lever as they bobbed up and down on the seesaw.
``You have to sit closer to the middle, to the fulcrum,'' Becky Cooper told an adult. ``Because you're heavier than me.
``You're the load and I'm the force.''
Trena Phillips, their teacher, smiled at the fledgling physicists.
The fifth-graders from Birdneck Elementary were traveling the information superhighway via the Internet. All three are students in Irvin Beard's science class.
They watched the screen as messages from Jody Gee of Newcastle, England, and poet John Ost of Nashua, N.H., flashed into view. They read a poem, ``Lives Unlived,'' by Nicole Plummer of John Page Middle School in Madison Heights, Mich. The poem was written in memory of the children who died in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Kevin Furrow was dropping water on the pennies to learn about surface tension: How many drops of water will adhere to the face of the coin before spilling over the side?
Furrow managed 32 on the first coin; an average of 27.4 for five.
Tim Weis, a sixth-grade science teacher at the host school, attached a 12-pound bowling ball to a rope and suspended it from a beam above the first floor.
The pendulum demonstrated the conservation of energy, and a hands-on principle of kinetic and potential energy.
``If you hold the ball up in front of your face and just let it go - don't push it - it will return to almost the exact spot it left minus a bit for friction and resistance,'' Weis said.
Several initially-reluctant volunteers took up Weis' invitation and looked surprised as the ball left their hands and returned to the spot in front of their faces, just as Weis had assured them.
The festival encouraged exhibits like Weis', ones that were interactive, said coordinators Davis, Peyton and McLamb.
``Kempsville Middle School used a video-laser disc and software to generate a presentation that captured considerable attention, for example,'' said McLamb.
Several high schools displayed projects that had won awards at the Tidewater Regional Science Fair in March, said Davis.
``Our schools won in aeronautics, chemistry, engineering and medicine and health,'' she said.
Robert Sidner, a student at Kempsville High School, won the Navy/Marine Corps First Place for Distinguished Achievement in Engineering in a national competition and is now eligible for an $8,000 college scholarship.
Salem High School held a Physics Bowl, at which they queried visitors about physical science.
An audience of about 100 people watched Tim SanJulian of the Wildlife Center of Virginia. With an owl named Tumbler perched on one hand, SanJulian informed and entertained his listeners.
``An owl has very sensitive hearing,'' he said. ``It can hear two mice conversing 50 yards away.''
SanJulian spoke about regeneration and how Tumbler acquired his name.
``If I cut off my hair,'' said the pony-tailed SanJulian, ``it will grow back, as you can see. Tumbler's wings were cut off, but they won't grow back. He can't fly. Some body parts of humans and birds will regenerate; some won't.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by GARY EDWARDS
Kevin Furrow, fifth-grader at Windsor Oaks Elementary, was able to
get 32 drops of water on the face of a penny while learning about
the properties of surface tension.
by CNB