#Oceans
Hi, Lynne–
Where was this science program when I was in elementary school? I dimly
remember getting hooked on the sciences in about the 4th grade, and I did
indeed come to regard science as better than recess – but mostly I did it at
home.
What is a "spiraling program of technology and engineering"? It sounds
reminiscent of a PBS series called "Connections", made in the UK as I recall,
that aired some years ago. That show was good about showing how each discovery
built on several other seemingly irrelevant advances.
I wonder if it would be practical to lead the students into rediscovering
ultraviolet and fluorescence by letting them fiddle with quartz (not glass or
plastic!) prisms and beams of sunlight in an otherwise darkened room, giving
them also a specimen of strongly-fluorescent fluorite. Give them a thermometer
also, and see if they discover infrared. Simply trying to find where the
visible colors came from should occupy them for a while.
–Doug