SCHOOL: Olive Chapel Elementary

GRADE LEVEL: 2nd

PROGRAM: Sound Surprise

INSTRUCTOR: Gabi Goszczynska

Scientist Gabi’s Experience:

Rolling down the hall with two big bins filled with balloons, tuning forks and a giant ear, I was back again this week for teaching a second round of Sound Surprise at Olive Chapel Elementary! This is one of Science Fun for Everyone’s most popular programs and definitely one of the most fun to teach. Olive Chapel Elementary is a brightly painted and friendly school filled with awesome students many of whom have attended birthday parties and camps back at the lab. It was nice to see many familiar faces!

I started off astounding students with my balloon trick, managing to keep my balloon from popping even though I poked a giant needle through it. Thankfully, I am a scientist and not a magician so I was able to share my secret with my fellow scientists. Just a little bit of Vaseline on the end of the needle should block up your holes, keeping the balloon from popping. But, just to make sure everyone was listening, I surprised them by popping the balloon anyway in the end. The program definitely started off with a bang!

We then explored how sound waves travel through solids, liquids and gases and how they vibrate molecules along the way. My favorite part of Sound Surprise is seeing the kids giggle as they vibrate their noses, buttons and zippers with the tuning forks. After showing them my giant ear model, we built our own ear models. It put a grin on my face to see how many cups were decorated with “Science Rocks! and “Science is cool.” The grand finale is of course the Sound Slime. It seemed that everyone was getting the hang of blowing up giant Sound Slime bubbles. I have to say that it was because I had so many great listeners and smooth “SAILers” at Olive Chapel Elementary. All in all, I had a wonderful day with tons of positive vibrations filling the classroom!