Kevin Grimes and Yvonne Akpalu
A scientist arrived at Metropolitan Business Academy with a gooey hands-on lesson meant to foster student creativity and experimentation. That worked out well for Kevin Grimes, who achieved chemistry success by ignoring the directions.
Grimes was one of 15 sophomores in an 8 a.m. science class led Friday by Yvonne Akpalu, a doctor of polymer science and engineering. Her New Haven-based company, Why Science, aims to improve science and math education. She came to Metropolitan Business Academy to lead students in a chemistry experiment.
Akpalu (pictured) had to contend at first with a seemingly uninterested group of teenagers. But after the chemicals came out, students perked up and began to concoct gooey Silly-Putty-like substances.
Part of the point of Akpalu’s lesson was to show the students “how much fun science can be,” said school Principal Judy Pugliese. The lesson was also meant to foster creative thinking and collaboration, Akpalu said.
The lesson came as schools gear up to take the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT), an annual standardized test for all high school sophomores. It’s the main tool for measuring student performance in high school, both for New Haven’s school reform drive and the federal No Child Left Behind act. Testing starts March 2 and continues through the month, according to the school district’s calendar.
“What you’re going to experience,” Akpalu told the students on Friday, “is the journey of a plastic product from idea to final product.” The challenge was to increase the bounciness of a ball a mythical company produces, leading to “increasing revenue and sometimes great profit.”
“The goal of this workshop,” she said, “is to ignite your passion for science and help you gain the knowledge and confidence so you can go to any college of your choice, or if you decide not to go to college and choose another career, you’ll excel because you understand the role of science in life.”
Akpalu began by writing some information on the board. Most students seemed uninterested, some with heads down, others with arms crossed, one playing with a cell phone. It seemed touch-and-go whether they’d ever get to the “fun” part.
This was the admittedly boring but critical first step, Akpalu explained. “You have to come up with key questions you are going to address, then identify what kinds of problems you need to solve in order to answer the main question. You need to identify what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it. Is everybody with me?”
Melinda Tuhus Photo
Apparently not everybody was. She asked for a show of hands, and no hands went up, so she switched gears and went around to each group of three students. She reviewed the handouts she’d brought and took students to the next step: filling two plastic cups with polyvinyl alcohol solution and polyvinyl acetate solution. They were supposed to measure out different amounts of each into another cup, add coloring if they chose (they all did) and even glitter (which the girls went for), stir it up, then knead it inside a plastic bag until, voila! it turned into some approximation of Silly Putty (which she also had on hand).
This activity got everybody involved, even a student who earlier had been reading “Catcher in the Rye” and forcefully rebuffing Akpalu’s efforts to bring him on board.
The students resisted what might have been a strong temptation to throw the putty at each other, so intent were they on their work. As it took shape in their hands, Akpalu got more and more animated with their creations. Some of the concoctions remained more like Jell‑O, but Kevin Grimes and his partners created something that approximated Silly Putty, albeit putty that vibrated in one’s hands. Akpalu delightedly threw Grimes’s ball to him.
Asked if he followed directions for mixing the materials, Grimes, like a true experimenter said, “I didn’t measure exactly. I just poured the ingredients in ‘til it started to gel.”
Akpalu told the students what they were learning in her workshop would help them do well on tests.
Another goal of the workshop was to get small groups of students to work collaboratively. That happened to some degree, but in most trios, one student took the lead.
Grimes said he’d never done such an experiment before. “I liked working with it [the materials],” he said. Asked his favorite subject, he said, “English, but this made me more interested in science.”
Two girls working together said the workshop was “fun,” but didn’t make them more interested in science. One said she plans to be an English-Arabic translator, the other an interior designer.
