Beacon Heights steps up science studies

American schools are, in general, not very strong in math and science by international standards. Beacon Heights Elementary is working to fix that by engaging students’ minds through their hands as well as their eyes and ears.

The school opened a new science lab in a converted classroom and hired a science specialist in the fall to help expand their Science Extension Program, known to the students as Sci-X. The program began last year at a smaller scale, run entirely by volunteers, but the students enjoyed it so much, parents petitioned the school for more.

“Kids are natural scientists,” Hands-On Science Specialist Dierdre Straight said. “They want to know more.”

Sci-X allows Beacon Heights students to really run with that innate curiosity by giving them a chance to try out the science concepts they learn in their regular classes. Based on a curriculum written by Indian Hills Elementary’s science specialist Ruth Li, Sci-X is closely tied to the state science core. Each classroom teacher instructs his or her students in the core materials as usual, and each class gets to visit the science lab periodically. They do experiments based on what they previously learned. Beacon Heights parents are still heavily involved, and their help allows the students to be split up into smaller groups during lab time.

Before the Sci-X program took off, Beacon Heights classroom teachers were entirely on their own in science instruction. After they filled the state core requirements, it was up to them whether they tackled hands-on experiments or not. There was no extra budget available for experiment materials, said Julie Davis, who chaired the fundraiser committee for the lab. As a result, students received widely varying depths of instruction in that area.

Now, in addition to the dedicated space, budget and specialist available to them, the teachers have pooled many of their classroom science resources. For example, microscopes are now kept in the lab so everyone in the school can use them.

The funding for the lab was partly raised by the students through a walk-a-thon held early in the school year.

“We wanted them to own their science program,” Davis said.

The walk-a-thon and other donations brought in more than $9,000, which is primarily going toward Straight’s salary, though some was used to purchase basic supplies such as petri dishes for the lab. A handheld “Kestrel” weather device that reads things like temperature, air pressure and humidity was also purchased with these funds. A projecting microscope was donated by another source.

Another walk-a-thon will be held in September to help keep Sci-X funded.

In other science-related news from Beacon Heights, Emily Mortensen, the teacher in charge of Sci-X last year, recently secured a grant from Kennecott to fund a website that will make Ruth Li’s science experiment curriculum available to any teacher anywhere who wants to incorporate more hands-on work into their classes. The website will go live within the next couple of months, and will be accessible through Beacon Heights’ website, beaconheights.slcschools.org, and through the Utah Educator’s Network site, www.uen.org.

“It’s a very exciting time, and I’m glad to be a part of it,” Straight said.