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Bucks County Courier Times
Kids get scientific in the summer
By Joan Hellyer
What do you get when you mix raisins with vinegar and baking soda?
Dancing raisins, of course.
Just ask the kids in Rosemary Carr’s Science in the Summer class at the Yardley-Makefield branch library in Lower Makefield.
“Whoa. It’s doing a twist,” said Daniel Gilbert, 9, Tuesday as he and lab partners Devon Parisian and Charles Hagen worked through the operation using the three ingredients.
It’s one of several experiments the kids are diving into this week during the GlaxoSmithKline’s Science in the Summer program at the library. Teacher Carr and several teen volunteers, generally former students in the program, guide the kids through the various activities.
“Scientists have to be problem solvers. They have to think about ways to solve things if something doesn’t work,” Carr told the kids as they worked through the raisin experiment. “If you walk away from it, then you are not a scientist.”
GSK began spearheading the free, hands-on science camps for elementary school kids more than 20 years ago at libraries throughout the Philadelphia area, organizers said.
Each four-day program consists of four groups of 15 students, organizers said. They attend class for 45 minutes a day. Two of the groups are made up of kids entering second or third grade and the other two groups are composed of students entering fourth through sixth grades.
GlaxoSmithKline varies the subjects each summer to make sure returning students learn something new, Carr said.
For instance, in 2005 students delved into oceanography, last summer they explored electricity, and chemistry is this summer’s area of study. In addition to the dancing raisins experiment, the kids also have learned how a crystal ball is created by mixing dry ice and water and what happens when vinegar mixes with copper.
James Calcagni, who will enter fourth grade in September at Eleanor Roosevelt Elementary School in Falls, has attended sessions each of the last three years.
“I don’t want the whole summer to go by without him having any schooling,” said James’ mother, Ellen Calcagni. “It’s fun for him and he doesn’t even think of it as school.”
The program is designed to help the kids develop key life skills such as teamwork, problem solving and perseverance, said Carr, a sixth-grade teacher at Central Bucks’ Warwick Elementary School.
“Hopefully, they’ll be able to take those skills back to the classroom next school year,“ she said.
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