Physics in the
Elementary School
Lewis E. Love
Preface, by James J. Wynne
As a youngster, I was very good in math and science
and expected to be a physician when I grew up. But, during the summer
between my junior and senior years of high school, I became concerned
that I would not be able to use my math ability if I became a physician.
In just one week at the beginning of my senior year, my concerns
were cast aside and I decided to become a physicist. My savior was
Lewis E. Love, my high school physics teacher. His method of teaching
science, featuring demonstrations, student experimentation, and problem
solving, made it transparent to me that my math ability was perfectly
matched to the study of physics. And his enthusiasm was contagious.
I had a party all year long. The highlight of the year was planning
out an experimental demonstration of Michelson's rotating mirror
measurement of the speed of light. (Although I did not actually complete
this experiment during high school, I was prepared to carry it out
in college, when I was able to acquire some of the requisite equipment.)
Another of my high school classmates, Carl Bender, also became a
physicist, as have many others of Mr. Love's students. I brought
Mr. Love, as my guest, to my 30th high school reunion. To my surprise
and delight, my non-physicist high school classmates remembered him
with great affection. He was soon surrounded by his old students
who asked him if he still did some of his old demonstrations. My
classmates actually envied me for having become a physicist, especially
when I told them that it was as much fun as Mr. Love had made it
seem in high school. Through these next forty years, I have stayed
in touch with Mr. Love, and it is now my pleasure to introduce him
to the readers of this FEd newsletter. Although he is formally retired
from a long and illustrious career as a high school physics teacher
and a science department chair, his love of teaching and his belief
in science continue to be reflected in his second "career" as
a teacher of elementary school teachers.
Jim Wynne is
the administrator of the FEd home page. He helped form the APS
Forum on Education and served as the Forum Councillor for the first
eight years of its existence. He has worked for IBM Research since
earning his
Ph. D. in physics in 1969.
Introduction
Young children in our country are our most valuable natural
resource. With the vast explosion of knowledge, technology, and problems
induced by many factors, we need this group of wonderful young people
to assist us when they reach their maturity. Their science and mathematical
literacy is crucial to our survival. Science in the curriculum is more
than just a subjectscience is a way of looking at the world around
you. The teaching of science at the elementary school level is perhaps
the most important step in developing the potential of human beings,
because it provides the foundation, the tools, and the stimuli for
enthusiastic young people in our care to learn and dream.
 The exponential growth of scientific and technical knowledge
makes it impossible for most citizens to keep themselves aware and
knowledgeable of the increasing bounty of information that is presented
to them on a daily basis. The Internet and the multimedia conglomerates
have complicated things significantly, by providing an abundance of
information that is not critiqued by qualified authorities and is therefore
not necessarily accurate. Elementary school teachers have been asked
to cope with this fantastic growth of information in science, mathematics,
and technology, while continuing to address all their other responsibilities
having to do with their students. Given the constraints of time and
the myriad of competency examinations, standards, frameworks, and State
Action Plans, elementary school teachers have been placed in an untenable
situation, without being provided with mentors who can assist them
in learning to handle their added responsibilities. Initial training
and curriculum decisions at the university level in prior years have
left these teachers without the background or training to cope with
these demands, especially in science, mathematics and technology.
What can be done to solve this problem? One solution
is to train the teachers and students together. This article presents
an approach to this solution.
Keep It Simple Physics (KISP)
Physics is the basic science that is fundamental to all
the other branches of science. Physics can be used very effectively
to help students learn to think, read, write, use mathematics as a
thought tool, and provide insight into our cultural heritage and social
environment. But physics is an area of study, which brings intellectual
fear into the hearts of those people who have not been introduced to
its simplicity, beauty, logic, and its ability to help us understand
the world around us.
I propose that many important concepts in physics can
be effectively taught to 4th and 5th graders. I also propose that you
can train the teachers of these students to effectively do this through
an in-service program developed by any high school or university physics
teacher, incorporating a hands-on curriculum that I have developed.
I have been experimenting with this curriculum for many years with
elementary school students, high school students, and elementary school
teachers that I have instructed at Hofstra University and at The National
Labor College of the George Meany Center for Labor Studies. I would
now like to extend this curriculum to other students and teachers.
The program, Keep It Simple Physics, or KISP, is based
on a program called Keep It Simple Science, or KISS. KISS incorporates
a series of hands-on experiences in science, mathematics, and technology
and requires only inexpensive equipment. These experiences are simple
to execute, are fun to do, and provide the teacher with all the elements
needed to develop a program for the present and one that will evolve
into the future. KISP consists of demonstrations, hands-on experiences,
and techniques that can be used with children to get them to understand,
appreciate, and enjoy science.
When a teacher is involved with KISP activities, students
will be provided with experiences that reinforce skills, abilities,
and concept development in reading, writing, mathematics, alternative
thinking, problem solving, and a wider view of the world. These factors
are an important consideration to many urban schools, where funds,
facilities, equipment and training are at a minimum. In fact, administrators
might endorse and support this program for its dual potential as a
viable, powerful and important academic component to the school program,
as well as one that requires a minimal use of financial resources.
Some Proposed Activities
Cryptic titles such as "The Magic Spoons," "The Candle,
the Egg, the Bottle," "Dancing Raisins," "The Maple Copter," "The Soda
Bottle and the Diver," or "The New York Times and the Broken Board" provide
a flavor of the activities that make up this curriculum.
E.g. In "Dracula's Experiment," the candlelight is polarized
when reflected from a glass plate. By holding a Polaroid filter
57o from the vertical, and rotating it in the proper direction,
the image in the glass plate will disappear. Vampires don't produce
images!!
It is important for students to be involved in experiences
that require creative and alternative thinking. Accordingly, the KISP
program incorporates additional intellectual challenges derived from
mathematical topics such as algorithms and
cryptography.
KISP activities naturally lead students and teachers
to make the necessary connections between facts, concepts, and principles
they have learned to help them explain and interpret the world around
them, as well as to appreciate alternative ways of viewing a solution
to a problem. There are many activities, all of which have been field
tested, that provide a broad scope of experiences.
This program could operate on a four-week cycle, with
periodic evaluation and anxiety reduction sessions. The teachers would
meet once a week to discuss what they have accomplished, what works
and what doesn't. At the end of the first four-week cycle, the teachers
would begin to create a handbook, namely a compilation of curriculum
materials that could be used by other teachers. Teachers would naturally
incorporate new material into the handbook after successive four-week
cycles. The teachers would have a sense of ownership and a vested interest
in the making of these activities and techniques into viable and successful
curriculum.
There have been two useful modes to carrying out the
KISP program. The major portion of the program has each student, or
pairs of students, using the hands-on activity structure to explore
ideas in physics. The other mode features a directed discussion using
demonstrations and discovery learning situations with the whole group
of students.
Peer Teaching
I have trained talented and patient high school students
to assist me in the implementation of the program. Any school district
can follow the same procedure by identifying a cooperating physics
class taught by a capable high school physics teacher. Initially, the
elementary students and their teachers visit the high school where
they work with the high school students on laboratory experiences and
other activities. When the high school students have developed sufficient
skill and confidence, the program moves to the elementary school, where
the high school students continue to be supervised by the elementary
school teacher and their physics teacher. When the teachers feel that
the high school students can successfully and effectively operate on
their own, these students continue without their physics teacher's
supervision, under the guidance of the elementary school teacher.
What makes this component of the plan particularly interesting
and exciting is the combined and positive community effort. The elementary
school and the high school become a single instructional unit. Having
the elementary school students visit the high school, making it possible
for the high school students to mentor and bond with the elementary
school students, creates a very powerful sociological experience for
both groups of students. The benefits to the high school students go
well beyond the very powerful enhancement of their own self-image through
community service. Their understanding of the concepts of physics is
strengthened. What better technique is there to achieving mastery than
teaching what you have learned to others?
Important Ideas of Science
Many important physical concepts can be developed from
this curriculum, e.g.:"The universe is regular and predictable;" "Energy
always evolves from more useful to less useful forms;" "Electricity
and magnetism are two aspects of the same force;" "Everything:
particles, energy, the rate of electron spin comes in discrete units
and you can't measure most things without changing them;" "The
surface of the Earth is constantly changing; no feature on the Earth
is permanent."
The complete list, compiled by Robert Hazen and James
Trefil, authors of The Physical Sciences: An Integrated Approach (Wiley,
1996, ISBN: 0-471-15440-7), is not "etched in stone." You,
the reader, may have ideas as to what should be added or removed from
the list and may even wish to modify the language of the statements.
The purpose of the list is to get you thinking about these ideas in
relation to the world around you.
Some Anticipated Outcomes
For teachers:
Enrich the science and cultural background of the elementary
school and high school teachers and create a closer education bond
between the two groups that provides for mutual respect and purpose
Provide a reservoir of experiences that provide a
viable instructional program for the students
Reduce anxiety about the teaching of science, and
demonstrate how interesting and exciting the experience can be
for elementary school teachers
For students:
Provide many opportunities to grasp abstractions and
apply them
Enable them to explain and understand the world around
them and appreciate how things function
Facilitate the use mathematics as a thought tool
Learn to follow directions intelligently and to read
with understanding
Learn to gather and organize data in an experimental
mode and make connections
Develop the skills needed for solving problems, be
alternative thinkers, recognize patterns
Provide a stimulus for some students to pursue careers
in science
Conclusion
KISP enlists the cooperation of the elementary school
and the high school to provide a valuable educational experience for
all children. The teachers in both schools will appreciate the role
that they play in the education of their students. The inevitable development
of mutual respect and understanding provides the school district with
a stronger academic program for the young children and young adults.
High school students have an opportunity to see teaching as a very
important and fascinating intellectual activity that could lead to
a very exciting career choice. The processes of science make it possible
to understand and interpret, to some degree, what is happening in the
environment, where you are an important component. The knowledge derived
makes it possible for the individual to make decisions, protect and
conserve health, provide for the basic needs of life, and to extend
the intellectual and moral potential for all human beings. KISP is
a program that uses physics and its related ideas to initiate our youth
into the scientific process.
Lewis E. Love has been teaching
science for 50 years. He taught high school physics in the Great
Neck, NY public schools from 1959 until his retirement in 1997. He
now spends much of his time teaching elementary school teachers how
to teach physics to 4th and 5th graders. He welcomes questions
about his KISP program to explain the nature of any of the activities,
the materials needed, how to perform the activity, and suggest the
appropriate questions to ask, possible applications, and assessments
you may wish to use.
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