Kingsville and Jack Miner
Do ECOO!

ECOO award winners Fred Driedger and John Braun from Kingsville District High School and Corry Demeris stole the hearts of computer using science teachers at the annual Educational Computing Organization of Ontario's Annual Conference in Toronto on May 1, 1998.

In a venue where presenters and speakers slickly slide through a Powerpoint presentation, the educators behind the "Computers in the Science Classroom" project borrowed a large cart from the kitchen at the Regal Constellation Hotel and walked in with a pair of computers, plywood, a scooter, various probes, masking tape, string, science stands, science beakers, ice, salt, and a mixture of chemicals where I distinctly heard John say sulphuric acid as one of the components. Clearly, this presentation was going to be just a bit different!

Over the next hour, participants were exposed to acceleration by scooter, an attempt to control body temperature, a demonstration as to why you put salt on ice in the winter, a visual of your heart beat using a flashlight, and the all-time crowd pleaser, the fire fighting robot who uses a heat sensor to zero in on a fire source which is extinguished by a self-contained water pump.

Nobody left the room as these gentlemen explained the great things that are happening in their Kingsville area science classrooms. During the course of the presentation, they bounced between their laptop computer which was displaying a slideshow and a copy of their web page and a full-sized desktop computer which had the Personal Science Lab connected to the serial port of the computer. Using the photoelectric, motion, pH, and temperature modules, the presentation seemlessly moved from demonstration to demonstration. During the 60 minutes alloted to the participants, they all got their money's worth as the presenters interacted with the audience and treated them to 6 or 7 different science experiments. The power of the Personal Science Lab coupled with the computer was readily apparent. Any one of these experiments would normally take numerous entire class periods to cover in the traditional manner.

To read more about the award, visit http://www.enoreo.on.ca/ecoo/awards.htm .

For more information, contact:

Corry at Corry_Demeris@gecdsb.on.ca or visit Jack Miner Public School on the web,
Fred at Fred_Driedger@gecdsb.on.ca, John at John_Braun@gecdsb.on.ca or visit the Computers in the Science Classroom site at http://www.ecb.edu.on.ca/psl/psl.htm.

(dp)

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