MANSFIELD – While Saturday mornings are often spent sleeping in at Jeremiah Viscioni’s house, the sixth grader woke up early on Saturday, Feb. 17 for the sake of science.
Viscioni and about 50 students in Kindergarten to sixth grades participated in the second of four “Science Saturdays” that will take place through March 24 at the Springmill Elementary School, 1200 Nestor Dr.
Each “Science Saturday” features a series of three hands-on, interactive, science-related activities for the fourth through sixth graders and other projects for the younger students. The activities are led by professors and education students from the Ohio State University at Mansfield in the elementary school’s STEM galleries. They include Alternative Energy, CSI, Earth Studies, Feathers & Flight, Gears, Levers & Pulleys, Measuring Mars, Number Sense and Ecology.
“We’re really hoping to generate an interest in science and science fields,” said OSU instructor Adrienne Hopson. “Right at this age (third to sixth grade) is when they start to drift off from science.
“A lot of them lose interest because it becomes difficult and more challenging, so we try to show them that it’s still a fun and exciting subject and hopefully retain some of that interest.”
For Viscioni, this isn’t a problem. He likes learning science. He attended Science Saturday last year and was excited to attend again when his mother asked him about it.
“It’s pretty cool,” he said while mixing a cup full of slime for one experiment.
The first slime mixture he created didn’t turn out well, but recognizing that sometimes things don’t go as planned in science projects, he tried again.
Fourth grader Kalayah Johnson wasn’t new to Science Saturday either. She’s attended in previous years and was disappointed when she missed the first of the four events that took place in early February.
Like Viscioni, Johnson and her grandmother Patti Resar were working on the slime experiment. Johnson had just successfully created her first of several slimes and was testing to see how well it bounced.
“I think it’s great,” Resar said. “It gives them something to do and they’re learning.”
Science Saturdays started in 2015 for the older age group. It wasn’t held in 2016 but picked up again in 2017. Activities for the younger age group were added only this year in recognition of Springmill Elementary School receiving the Ohio Department of Education designation of STEM school.
“You have to start them out in that direction. The whole Science Saturday is about getting kids thinking about science, technology, engineering and math and realizing they can do it,” said program coordinator Christina Drain.
Science Saturdays is made possible through a partnership between the Mansfield City School District, the Ohio State University at Mansfield and through a grant by the Connections Fund with Richland County Foundation.
For more information call 419-755-4111. To register for a future Science Saturday, visit go.osu.edu/sciencesaturdays. Upcoming dates are Saturday, March 3 and Saturday, March 24.
