Big Snakes, Materials Science and Hovering Children at Toll Gate Science Night

Explosions going off, giant Burmese pythons slithering around, children zooming by on a hovercraft – just another quiet evening at Toll Gate Grammar School? Hardly. It's Science Night, a first for the school, which more than 100 parents and children attended. 3rd grade teacher Connie Cloonan, very active in elementary science education programs, collaborated with Princeton Center for Complex Materials (PCCM) Educational Outreach Director Dr. Daniel Steinberg to organize the program with the support of Toll Gate’s school administration. The event was designed to introduce children to new concepts in science, engineering and materials science.

It has been Dr. Steinberg’s experience that the earlier a child develops an interest in science, the more likely that child is to succeed in math and science classes in school and possibly a career in science. These kids were definitely developing an interest. The line to ride the hovercraft (home-made by Dr. Steinberg, himself) was evidence enough! Students learned about physics, properties of matter and light, chemistry, and biology in some unusual ways.

Dr. Steinberg and Ms. Cloonan trained teachers and parents to teach kids principles of science and to perform demonstrations of those principles. Toll Gate students of all grades learned about density, light refraction, acoustics and photosensitivity. Most of the equipment was provided by PCCM’s Outreach program.

Dr. Steinberg’s team of parents and teachers were joined by some friends of PCCM. Kitty Wagner of Princeton’s chemistry department showed kids that different gases have different densities. John Lyga of the chemical company FMC taught Toll Gate students about paper chromatography with the dye in candy. The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) provided many demonstrations for the teachers and parents to perform to introduce children to plasma, the 4th state of matter and the most common state in the universe. Dick Weatherald of Princeton University’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory taught the students about tornados, water spouts and plasma in the earth’s atmosphere when lightning strikes. This hands-on portion of the event was very popular. Dr. Steinberg considers it a good sign that it was hard to get the students to leave the cafeteria at the end of 45 minutes of science activities. The outreach team learned an important lesson – next year, have the activities at the end of the evening to allow students to explore and discover science as much as they want!

The grand finale was a presentation sponsored by the PTA of Toll Gate Grammar School – Bill Boesenberg of Snakes ‘n’ Scales and his many exotic reptiles. The reptile expert held a full-grown alligator before an amazed audience of families and teachers. Other members of the menagerie included a baby crocodile, a very big albino Burmese python, a snapping turtle, and a monitor lizard. Mr. Boesenberg explained that many of his animals have been rescued from homes of people who mistakenly thought they could keep wild animals as pets.

Science Night at Toll Gate was such a success that PCCM plans to hold many similar events in the future.