Museum Program Makes Science Fun

By Lisa Young, Cedar City Review, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2006

Fourth grade students at South and North Elementary Schools learned about erosion and animal adaptation in a new way last week when “Scientist in the Classroom” came to town.

Scientist in the Classroom is part of the Utah Museum of Natural History’s “Museum on the Move,” a traveling exhibit with real objects and artifacts that provides students a hands-on learning experience in natural sciences. The museum collaborated with the University of Utah’s Project WEST (Water, Environment, Science and Teaching) and brought graduate students in geology, geophysics, biology and meteorology to teach fourth graders in the Iron and Beaver County School Districts.

South Elementary fourth graders had been studying erosion and weathering as part of the science core curriculum, so last Tuesday was a perfect time to learn more about erosion. Inside a 10-foot trailer lab, students participated in several hands-on activities that taught them about erosion, deposition, cut banks and point bars, channels, deltas, etc. They also talked about how these relate to local events like the 2005 floods in Washington County.
The next day, fourth graders at North Elementary learned about animal adaptation, “a behavior or structure that helps an organism survive.” Graduate students Winston Seilor and Liz Cohen let students touch the furs of a beaver and coyote, and showed them the wing and talons of a red-tailed hawk. They also had skulls and fossils for students to examine. Cohen taught the students an easy way to tell the difference between a carnivore and an herbivore.
“Eyes in front hunt,” she said. “Eyes on the side hide.”

For each visual, Seilor and Cohen explained the ways that the animal had adapted to its surroundings. Beavers have thick fur and strong enamel on their teeth, and a strong tail to help build dams. Coyotes use their ears, eyes and teeth to hunt and capture prey. The hawk’s feathers were brown on the top and white on the bottom to help camouflage it, and its talons helped it catch food.

The presentation then moved outside so Seilor could demonstrate one of a bobcat’s most valuable adaptations: padded feet. Pads on the feet of dogs, cats, etc. are an adaptation that allow them to walk softly and sneak up on prey. To illustrate this, Seilor first had the students practice “walking softly,” then he had them close their eyes and cover their ears to see if they could feel him jumping up and down.

Students seemed most impressed by the objects and artifacts that they were able to see and touch. Whether they were playing in the dirt in the erosion lab or cautiously reaching out to touch a hawk talon, it didn’t take a scientist to figure out that they were having a great time.
“It’s really great to see how students become much more engaged when they have real objects to touch, smell and examine,” Naomi Levin, a Scientist in the Classroom teacher, said in a prepared release. “Our goal is to instill in students a sense of wonder and passion about nature that will inspire them to choose science career paths.”

Lorie Millward, outreach coordinator for Scientist in the Classroom, said the program—now in its third year—has been “very successful.” It allows children to see that scientists are still learning new things, and also makes science fun.
“Museum and university scientists love what they do, and they love to share their interests with school children,” Millward said in the same news release. “The purpose of (this) program is to get that face-to-face discussion going and get the kids thinking about the natural sciences in a different way and to be a resource for science teachers.”

To learn more about the Utah Museum of Natural History and its programs, visit www.umnh.utah.edu.

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