MARYSVILLE — The gym at Kellogg Marsh Elementary School was turned into a roving science museum Wednesday as part of an outreach program from the Pacific Science Center.
Called “Science on Wheels,” the program takes educational exhibits and presentations on the road to schools throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Initially launched during the gas crisis of the 1970s when field trips were expensive, the program is still a big help for cash-strapped schools.
Sandra Witter, a PTA volunteer who helped fund the visit to Kellogg Marsh, watched over the second-graders in the gym dashing from exhibit to exhibit.
“This is fun for them because they won’t have a field trip this year,” Witter said.
The theme of this year’s exhibit is geology — “Rock and Roll,” according to Victoria Alden, an outreach educator from the Pacific Science Center who visited several second-grade classrooms during the day.
Alden donned a blue wig and energized the kids in Cindy Sorensen’s class, encouraging them to adopt “rock and roll” names like Victoria Vicious before launching into a more sedate lesson.
She handed out bags of different kinds of rocks and asked the kids to categorize them by appearance and whether or not they could mark a piece of paper with them.
After several cries of “Ooh! This one does!” and, “It’s a crayon!” when they found a pyrite sample in their collection, she handed each young researcher a flashscope — a combination magnifying glass with a light source.
“Geologists!” she said. “I want you to figure out which rocks have patterns in them and which rocks have crystals.”
The kids dived into deep examination of their rocks.
Back in the gym, Barbara McKinney’s class was busily making the rounds among exhibits of magnetites, crystal shapes, mildly radioactive ores and puzzles that helped kids learn about fossil layers and landforms.
Kaila McIlvain experimented with a “disaster doll house,” a house frame with doll house furniture set up on a platform designed to simulate an earthquake.
She described the earthquake drills her class practices.
“In class, when there was an earthquake we get to go under the table and hold the legs,” McIlvain said.
Pointing to the tiny table in the doll house, she said, “Our table is glued to the floor.”
Then she started up the shaking again, grinning as the furniture toppled over.
Another group of kids worked with another earthquake simulator — it was one of the more popular activities in the gym that day — building up structures on top with Lincoln Logs before starting the destruction.
Later, another class of seven- and eight-year-olds rotated into the gym, excited to get their hands on interesting objects — and to knock over a few more with simulated seismic waves.
Susan Pefley said her class would soon get more instruction in geology to build on this exposure, and she plans to weave ocean and environmental science in as well.
Last year, the school was able to visit the Pacific Science Center on a field trip. The PTA funded the transportation, but the students still had to pay to go.
“This is a wonderful alternative, that the PTA is paying for the day and there are no out-of-pocket expenses,” Pefley said. “This is our field trip.”
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
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