Roots, Seeds, and . . . Dirt?
I went to an Oakland school to see a BASIS lesson called "Roots, Seeds & Stems". Little did I know that I should have brought my gardening gloves.
One of CRS’ achievements is its Bay Area Scientists in Schools (BASIS) program. With over 270 committed, enthusiastic volunteers, we are able to provide hands-on science learning experiences to over 6,000 students in 280+ classrooms during the school year.
OK, OK, OK, we are proud of these numbers, but the best part? The actual lessons!
At the end of the school year I went to a volunteer lesson to take some pictures and shoot some video with our Bayer Program coordinator, Jeyling. She and I walked into a classroom in an Oakland elementary school ready to see kids gawking at great science. And, boy, did we get that and then some!
Even before we walked up to the door of the first-grade classroom we could hear squeals of excitement and bursts of giggles. The kids were split into two groups; one group was learning about seeds of different plants, and the other about plant roots. Everything from pinecones, to dried wild oats, to sunflower seeds was being passed around from hand to hand in group one (“can we eat this” was overheard more than once…). And group two had the privilege of digging in dirt. Yup. That’s right. Digging. In. Dirt. At 10 am, on an otherwise normal Tuesday, these kids were looking for roots of marigolds, ferns, and other household plants that the Cal grad student volunteers brought in.
The volunteer team did a great job of illustrating parts of plants and describing what a plant needs to survive (nutrients, water, sunshine, etc—for those who didn’t attend the lesson). They also demonstrated the scientific process by placing white irises into a vase filled with water and red food dye at the beginning of the class and leaving it for the kids to discover the end results:
Volunteer: “As scientists we come up with an idea and then do an experiment to test that idea after we think of some questions to ask about it. What do you think will happen to these flowers with the red dye in their water?”
Student 1: “They’re gonna die.”
Student 2: “They’ll live.”
Student 3: “That red food dye looks like blood.”
Student 4: “The petals are going to turn red!”
Well, 25% isn’t bad for a first-time hypothesis in a 1st grade classroom!
Seeing the kids so excited about digging in the dirt and examining pinecones and sunflower seeds, two things they probably hadn’t considered ‘science’ to this point, made me realize—everyone is a scientist until they’re given a hurdle too big to jump over. Unfortunately, that happens much too soon nowadays with the focus being taken off of science and put into math and language arts. The beauty of this lesson is that these kids will see a plant outside and think back on the day that they got to dig up the roots of plants in their classroom—the day when being a scientist meant wielding a plastic spoon and getting your hands dirty.