Page 9 - MidValleyTimes 7-4-19 E-edition

Mike Nemeth / Mid Valley Times
ABOVE: Craig Wilson looked on as a Fairmont Elementary School student performed an experiment to demonstrate how hot wax can reignite even after the flame is blown out. Wilson was in Sanger on May 14 as a visiting professor to the science ag classes at the elementary school.
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took a spacewalk on May 29. Wilson is a professor at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. He's an Aggie. But more impor- tantly he's director of the U.S. Department of Agricul- ture Hispanic Serving In- stitutions National Program Future Scientists Project. He was working at the USDA's Parlier station when he met Christine Torosian-Klistoff and decided to act as a visit- ing professor to her science ag classes May 14 at Fair- mont Elementary School in
Sanger.
"He's amazing," Torosian-
Klistoff said as Wilson had her students in groups of four figure out how to pro- duce rocket fuel, using selt- zer tablets, varying amounts of water and small airtight canisters. "He said, 'I want to come teach your kids,' and I said, 'You're kidding me.'"
He did, wowing students and administrators alike in a couple of sessions. He tack- led how calories are burned (flame was involved), the plight of the disappearing monarch butterfly and how yellow meal worms can solve the problem of too much Styrofoam by eating it and sacrificing themselves for animal feed.
And a bunch more, all of it with an agriculture hook and the possibility of arous- ing the scientist in at least a small percentage of his audi- ence.
Audrina Piña, 10, was impressed, especially by the rocket she and her table mates created and shot off at least five times. But her eyes really lit up when Wil- son unveiled the Madagascar hissing cockroaches. The very alive creatures didn't hiss but they did look out of place, wanting to get out of their small plastic crate and move around and meet their new Fairmont friends.
Piña, who had already let the meal worm beetle scrab- ble around on her hand, let the 3-inch cockroach investi- gate her palm. A fellow stu- dent stood as far back as she could, warming to the con- cept of patting the copper- colored thoracic exoskeleton only after about 5 minutes.
"You can be an entomolo- gist," Wilson said to the class. Piña's eyes lit up. She nodded when asked if she thought it could be a possi-
bility.
"We need some of you to
be scientists," Wilson said as he wrapped up his presenta- tion.
Wilson packed so much into his afternoon session that all the 28 students who attended his college-level lec- ture no doubt left with minds reeling. But Wilson spoke in language easily understood and every bit of information was packaged in a way that younger people (and older ones) easily understand, feel and experience.
For instance, when Wil- son asked the class at large how the bubbles he blew over each table of four ag students was like the earth, 9-year-old Zak Alshoaibi nailed the answer.
"That film is like the atmosphere," Wilson said, quoting Zak. "You're like a genius."
A previous student had mentioned popping the bub- ble, a comment to which Wil- son responded, "That would
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Thursday, July 4, 2019 |
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Mike Nemeth / Mid Valley Times
The wax gas experiment proved to be popular for Fairmont Elemen- tary School students who listed to Craig Wilson lecture and lead ex- periements. This experiment three states of matter as it related to a candle. Students used birthday candles and wooden match sticks.
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be a disaster."
For earth anyway.
Later, Zak said of Wilson,
"He's a great guy. My kind of guy."
Ella Stephens, 10, wasn't so sure but still called him a "cool guy." She said burning stuff and the rocket propel- lent experiment was her fa- vorite.
Wilson showed Torosian- Klistoff's students what earth looked like at night from the space station, point- ing out Houston, New York and Washington, D.C. from actual footage he played on a big screen from his com- puter.
He alternately praised and panned his audience. But right or wrong, they giggled. Wilson, who has a distinct British accent from growing up in Northern Ire- land, proved seriously enter- taining. He didn't give them down time and continuously fed them information that they gobbled up, immediate- ly ready for the next lesson.
"Science is not easy," Wil- son said.
But he made it fun.
He cooked up some pop- corn, old-style, in a pot on a hot plate. Then he asked them to let a single popped kernel dissolve on their tongues. "See if you can taste the natural sugars," he said. "We exist on this earth be- cause of plants."
The lesson was meant to teach them about the power of plants, the creation of glucose and the energy that lives in every single kernel. "When it blows up, it lets the water out," he said. "Lots of science in cooking."
Then he talked of the three states of matter as it relates to a candle, demon- strating how wax gas can re- ignite even after the flame is blown out. A couple of stu- dents performed the experi- ment with birthday candles and wooden match sticks. And Wilson didn't miss an opportunity to pass along in- formation. The match stick was five years worth of stored carbon, or something like that, and the flame on the candle provided an op-
portunity to talk about how it would burn in space — in a perfect sphere.
"Science is looking at the world differently," he said.
Wilson described one of his own experiments of send- ing chrysalises into space af- ter showing a video of how the monarch butterfly grows from an egg to a caterpillar to shedding its exterior and becoming a butterfly. He talked about farming crick- ets, how things taste differ- ently in space because smells disburse differently without atmosphere and gravity.
He explained how beetles can take something toxic and make it edible. And he said monarchs raised in space did just fine. No mutations.
As he left that day, pack- ing up his Toyota, Wilson said he wasn't really considered scientist material while at- tending school in his younger years. "I was a hopeless stu- dent," he said. "Wanted to be outdoors all the time. That's what we're lacking now."
But Fairmont kids knew a lot about the outdoors. So apparently did the student he taught in Panama last year.
Wilson was impressed with his visit and the stu- dents he spent time with. A group of older students helped him gather his gear. They just wanted to have a few more moments with a guy who had become a celeb- rity at the rural school in just a few hours that day.
"Tremendous potential if we can excite them," Wilson said, putting the last crate of gear in the back seat.
Principal Jared Savage sat in on Wilson's lecture at least part of the time. He wore a big grin. And come commencement, when the eighth-graders move on, he planned to encourage them to pursue their dreams and make a difference. Very likely, some of them may be- come the next scientists to make big things happen.
That's how they do it at Fairmont.
The reporter can be con- tacted by email at nemeth- features@gmail.com or by phone at (559) 875-2511.
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