FULLERTON : Teaching of Science Comes Alive

Daniel Volmar nodded his head in agreement as the science teacher ticked off a list of characteristics that astrologers assign to those born under a constellation of stars shaped like a kissing fish.

“Are you sympathetic, understanding?” Marilyn Marks asked the 8-year-old Fullerton resident. “Yep,” he answered.

From astrology to astronomy, Daniel and 12 other third- through fifth-graders learned the secrets and the mysteries of the universe Wednesday during a science workshop at the Fullerton Museum Center.

The students gazed at paper stars and hurtled clay rockets into an imaginary stratosphere during the two-hour workshop, which was intended to help them overcome apprehensiveness about learning science, said Marks, a science specialist.

By studying the universe and its galaxies, students learned that science “can be fun. It can be interesting and it relates to their lives,” Marks said.

During the astrology project, students used paper and glue to make zodiac wheels that attached personality traits to star formations seen in the month that the student was born.

While some students were not sure if they really were influenced by the stars, Daniel disputed none of his assigned qualities.

On a more scientific level, students learned how stars are born in clouds of gas and dust.

Comparing the sun to a “bomb in a box,” Marks explained to the temporarily bewildered students that stars emit their energy slowly, allowing them to burn for millions of years.

Larger stars have less energy and are cooler than smaller ones, Marks explained. Likewise, their force of gravity is also weaker.

To illustrate the point, students used three bowls of varying depths to test the pull surrounding an average-size star, a partially disintegrated star and a black hole.

With a tiny ball of clay representing a rocket in each bowl, students kept the dish flat on the table and rotated it at a speed sufficient to allow the projectile to fly off into the air.

The most shallow bowl represented a star about the size of Earth. Students needed only to rotate that bowl about 10 times before the ball spun out. However, they were unable to get the ball out of the bowl that represented the black hole without tipping it over.

“The black hole’s gravity is so strong that it actually eats other stars,” Marks said. “Think of it as an enormous vacuum cleaner sucking up other stars.”

The next workshop, African Wrap Dolls, will be Sept. 7.