Kent programs keep budding scientists in the lab

Supply kits for grade-school classrooms

Supplying all 28 elementary schools with the tools and materials needed to teach and learn science is a big job, but two Kent School District programs are working to have it covered.

When elementary science students get to explore the physics of levers and pulleys, the behaviors of live insects, or the makeup of an owl pellet, they have the district’s Science Materials Resource Center and Transition Outreach Program to thank.

The Science Materials Resource Center, called SMRC, is responsible for organizing, stocking and distributing about 600 science kits for elementary classes throughout the district. The kits are part of the district’s hands-on elementary science curriculum, in place since 2003, which allows young students to learn through exploration rather than mere text-book reading.

“This is the way that kids remember science best,” said Jeff Barth, curriculum coordinator. “It’s more like real science, too, because they’re actually doing it. Research has shown that if you give the kids a hands-on science lesson first and then they go read about it, it sticks with them much better.”

The SMRC is operated by Amy Spies, who organizes all the necessary materials into easy-to-use kits to be distributed across the district.

“We have three different kits per grade level, and they rotate them throughout the year so each class gets to do each kit,” Spies said, adding the kits cover earth science, physical science and life science. “The teachers just put things together and then everything else is up to the kids. They do all the inquiry.”

The kits include materials purchased through vendors, and Spies also grows and tends to many of the living organisms — insects, crawfish, goldfish and plants — also included. But she can’t do it alone. To help her organize science kits and tend to the creatures grown at the SMRC, she enlists the help of students in the Transition Outreach Program, called TOPs.

TOPs is a program that instructs former district students ages 18-21 who have some type of developmental disability, aiming to prepare them as contributing members of society with employable skills.

“After high school, we have a lot of kids with developmental disabilities, so we take some of them and help them with the transition into being a member of the community,” said Jim Ewart, para-educator for the program.

The program puts participants in volunteer positions at first, in order to help them acclimate to the responsibilities of being an employee. Ewart said those temporary positions often help boost participants into full-time paying jobs.

Six of the 36 current TOPs students now volunteer at the SMRC with Spies, and Ewart said the collaboration benefits both sides.

“It takes patience and understanding on people like Amy’s part, but she’s also saying, ‘I couldn’t do all this without these guys,’ so it works well for both of us,” he said. “This is terrific for their self-esteem, for their training, to get them used to being at a regular job.”

Kentridge High School graduate Ryan Meyer, 20, a TOPs participant, is one of the six working Monday and Wednesday every week to organize science supplies. He said he’s enjoyed the opportunity.

“I seem to like it working here,” he said. “It teaches me a lot of responsibility. We get a lot of goals to work on.”

He said he’s reached some of those goals, but his next goal is to land a job at Fred Meyer next fall. For now, though, he says he’s good at putting together science kits for the district, and he likes working with the creatures at SMRC.

“We have a lot of bugs like big cockroaches and walking sticks,” he said. “Those are pretty cool.”

To learn more about the district’s elementary science curriculum, the Full Option Science System, visit www.fossweb.com or the district Web site, www.kent.k12.wa.us.

Contact Daniel Mooney at 253-437-6012 or dmooney@reporternewspapers.com.