Fifth, Sixth and Seventh grade students at The Renaissance School in Shelburne are soaring into the study of matter and energy with the support of a grant from the Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences.  Teacher Eve Dubois was awarded a $600.00 grant from the organization for a physics kit.  “I found out that we had been awarded the grant at Christmas time, so it was a wonderful gift!” she said.

The physics kit includes spring scales to measure forces, stopwatches, components for building and experimenting with simple machines, and altitude trackers.  “I am teaching our unit on matter and energy through flight and space because the whole idea of being able to fly involves motion and force, and those topics are the current focus of our studies.”

 The students are also utilizing the physics kit as they begin to prepare for the Vermont State Science and Mathematics Fair.  “One student is interested in working with cornstarch and water.  He knows that scientists haven’t figured out why the substances act as a liquid with little or no pressure, but then act as a solid when more force is applied.  He may explore the properties of other substances that work the same way using materials from the kit,” explained Mrs. Dubois.

“My primary goal is for students to do as much real life science as they can.  I want them to be completely comfortable with the scientific process, to come up with a question to which they can find an answer, not through research, but through experimentation,” says Mrs. Dubois about her style of teaching science with her middle school class.  During a science lesson, her students are not quietly reading and recording information from written materials; they are buzzing around like electrons, engaged in discussion about the scientific process and questioning everything going on within the process.  “The results of one experiment lead to more questions.  Asking questions to advance knowledge is what science is all about,” remarked Mrs. Dubois.  

Her students have taken to their study of flight and space with intense enthusiasm, as evidenced in a classroom discussion, which incorporated science and history.  As conversations about Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart flew from the tables, one student asked the class if anyone knew the first two people ever to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean.  “I try to teach the year-long themes across all content areas,” said Mrs. Dubois.  Indeed she does, even during writing and penmanship, the students worked with the following quotation from Wilbur Wright, “The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, above all obstacles, on the infinite highway of the air.”  As our ancestors inspired the idea of flight in our hearts and minds, it appears that these students are acquiring a similar excitement around learning and are moving full speed ahead themselves.