Science is Puzzling!

Today we had a great start to our year of Science from Scientists! Please let us introduce ourselves as the scientists assigned to your child’s classroom: Mr. Jeff Stanmyer and Dr. Elizabeth Bless. Mr. Stanmyer is a biologist working on DNA repair and Dr. Bless is a neuroscientist working on brain mechanisms involved in obesity.  We told the students a bit about our research and they had many insightful and interesting questions for us! After reviewing laboratory safety, the students were challenged to solve a simple puzzle using 4 pieces, which was pretty easy for them. But then we added in a new piece of “data” and our student scientists had to rethink how their puzzle pieces fit together and find a new solution to the puzzle. After some initial shouts of, “This is impossible!”, eventually all students solved the new puzzle and discovered that failure is ok and leads to finding a new solution when all seems hopeless. We talked about examples in scientific theory where scientists “knew” the answer only to find a new piece of data requiring them to rearrange everything they thought was true and start over.  A little lesson in perseverance and in looking at a problem in a whole new way when the old idea fails.

The focus of each of our visits in the classroom is a hands on activity where the students become scientists. Future lessons will involve space, engineering, physics, chemistry and much more!

We always welcome parents to come to the classrooms for our lessons, so please contact your child’s teacher for our schedule. Thanks for letting us share our love of science with your child!

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