Andy Tsai: Making Communities in the Classroom a little Heavy Metal
February 2011
Passing by a classroom where Andy Tsai and his lab mates are presenting “Properties of Metals,” you could be forgiven for not realizing that the students inside were receiving standards-based science instruction. Whether it’s pulling iron filings out of Total cereal, turning pennies silver and gold, or creating multi-colored flames, the hands-on activities – and the wide-eyed 5th graders exploring them – can make the scene appear more like a carnival than a traditional scientist’s classroom visit.
Yet Tsai and his co-presenters are just that – scientists teaching science. All are graduate students in the lab of UC-Berkeley Chemistry professor (and CRS board member) Bob Bergman, where Tsai researches – you guessed it – metals, specifically the application of transition metals to new organic reactions. Though that topic might seem a bit lofty for an elementary school student, in fact the groundwork for Andy’s research is being laid all the way back in the fifth grade, when students learn about the common properties of metals and differences between pure metals and alloys.
As volunteers with CRS’ Community in the Classroom program, the members of the Bergman group visit local elementary school classrooms once a month to teach an interactive, standards-based lesson, and in the process, to show the students a wide variety of real-life scientists. And of course, one hopes, to get them excited around science.
“[Once], a student asked, ‘are you popular.’ During another visit, a student asked if ‘they still picked on you,’” recounts Tsai. “Though at the time, I thought the questions were funny because they seemed to be so disconnected, now I think they were asking because the popular opinion among their peers is that it is uncool to be interested in science. I hope we’ve challenged that notion.”
For Tsai himself, his life-long interest in science seems to stem from the very same types of experiences that he now brings to the children. “I’ve always been interested in science. It is a subject which has a lot of hands-on activities. In elementary school…I remember when we studied simple machines, we made a Ferris wheel with K’nex. Later in high school, all the science classes I took had interesting labs, from dissecting animals, to burning metals, to making toothpick bridges.”
Now, as he begins his fourth year volunteering with the CIC program, Andy has teamed with the UC-Berkeley Mass Spectrometry Facility to develop a brand-new fifth grade lesson about the molecular basis of scent. Entitled “What’s that Smell?,” the presentation allows students to connect remotely to the world-class equipment at the Mass Spectrometry Facility to analyze scented mixtures in real time and determine their chemical components.
“Even after visiting over 20 classrooms, each new visit is different and fun,” says Tsai. “Teaching is simply fun. It’s even better when you teach kids because they get so excited and you can show them so many neat things.”
It’s safe to say that Andy and his fellow volunteers aren’t the only ones enjoying themselves. Kristine Fowler, a teacher at John Muir Elementary in Berkeley, raves about the CIC program, “having scientists come to my classroom is so inspiring to my kids. I also love being in the role of observer (and enforcer)…My only request for improvement is more of these programs, please.” We’re only too happy to oblige.