Elise Weaver, a lab instructor with the Bowdoin Physics Department, teamed up with Maria Palopoli to share electrical circuit lessons with her fifth grade class. Students were challenged to create a light sculpture using a portable power supply, LEDs and play dough.
Did you know that homemade play dough conducts electricity? In another lesson, students used sophisticated meters to measure the conductivity of different objects. Bowdoin physics students Michelle Burns and Dan Palkin brought their enthusiasm and helped the fifthgraders understand how electricity flows.
These lessons went so well that Weaver and Palopoli plan to formally connect these lessons to more physics topics taught at the elementary level and include more fifth grade classes.
“I can assure you. It was just as much fun for me and my students as it was for your students,” said Weaver after the lessons.
The entire fifth grade (all 180 of them) were guests of the Bowdoin Neuroscience Club in mid-April. Kat McNeil, a senior neuroscience major, organized the event. Along with lab instructor Nancy Curtis, several Bowdoin neuroscience students transformed the Druckenmiller Hall atrium into learning stations for the HBS students.
“The enthusiasm of the Bowdoin students was contagious,” said fifth grade teacher Blair Dwyer. “We were really impressed!”
The stations included activities on parts of the brain, optical illusions and how nerve cells communicate, among other topics. The teachers were as excited as the students.
“This was a great experience for our kids,” said teacher Brigette Brescia. “It’s a perfect way to start our unit on human biology.”
The Bowdoin Neuroscience Club put a great deal of time and effort into this event. To host eight classes, one at a time for nearly an hour each, took two full mornings. The teachers at HBS were delighted to hear that McNeil plans to repeat this event again next year.
To top off the lessons at Druckenmiller, Bowdoin Dining allowed students to eat in the dining hall.
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