FOREST LEAVES Ñ July 13, 2005
BY CHRIS LAFORTUNE
STAFF WRITER
The first and second graders at Lincoln School let the blue slime they had just made drip through their fingers and into the trays in front of them.
"It's alive! It's alive!" six-year-old Robbie Klock kept chanting, the water, corn starch and food-coloring mixture oozing from his fingers.
"It's raining goo!" Ben Hancock, also 6, chimed in.
The students took part in District 90's Slimy Science and Exciting Experiments class Thursday. The class meets at Lincoln School as part of the district's summer school program, which runs until Friday.
The class is designed to introduce science concepts and methods to students and to give them some experience, teacher Valerie Smart said.
"It's simple things that are hands-on for them, so they can get into it," Smart said.
Experiments this summer included the slime-making Thursday, crystal growing and experiments with water and ice. One particularly explosive experiment involved mixing vinegar and baking soda.
Messy
Vinegar was put into a plastic water bottle, Smart said, and a balloon filled with baking soda was placed over the top, sealing in the foamy, gaseous reaction.
"The first one we did did explode all over us," Smart said. "I think the balloon was too small, that we needed a bigger one."
Kathryn Raeder, 6, said the class was fun because students could get gooey.
"When it (the slime) dries on your hands, it gets really crumbly," she said. "The only thing that can get it off is water."
Lauren Taira, 6, said she liked getting slimy. One batch of slime would run through her fingers, she said, while other slime the class made was bouncy.
"It's kind of hard to clean up, too, because it gets all over the room," Taira said.
Robbie Klock found that out. He made slime at home, which got his parents' attention.
"They were kind of mad because I put slime on the ceiling," he noted.
Weird science
The Slimy Science is one of four science classes offered for kindergarten through fourth grade students this summer in District 90. Colleen Moore is teaching Weird Science for third and fourth grade students this summer.
Last week was archaeology week, and students sifted through buckets of dirt in search of dinosaur and human bones, actually tiny plastic bones buried in the dirt.
"The top layer was rocks and sand so they could get used to taking it out slowly and looking every place," Moore said. "The middle layer was old, but not too old, and had human bones."
Thursday, the students were down to dinosaur bones. Once they found what they were looking for, they were to go back into class Friday and figure out what bones came from what dinosaur.
Nine-year-old Kyle Hahn said the class project he enjoyed the most was crime lab. Students had to figure out who stole a bottle of root beer, using crime scene investigation techniques to find fingerprints, analyze pen ink and interview suspects.
"Miss Moore, since we were down to our last suspect, admitted that she did it," Hahn said. Moore had framed another teacher, getting her fingerprint on the bottle and her handwriting into a note left behind at the crime scene.
"My whole thought is that science is fun," Moore said. "Sometimes, that gets lost during the school year."
Chris LaFortune can be reached at clafortune@pioneerlocal.com.