ORANGE : Classes Put Science on the Front Burner

Skewered on a coat hanger inside an oatmeal box lined with tinfoil, the hot dog still wasn’t done.

West Orange Elementary School’s solar hot dog cooker experiment proved to be a culinary bust. Overcast skies Wednesday morning conspired to keep the wiener practically raw--even after three hours in the makeshift solar oven.

“The sun didn’t come out, so it’s not working,” said 10-year-old Linda Sanchez, a West Orange fourth-grader, who helped assemble the solar experiment. “It’s disappointing.”

The innovative frankfurter cooker may not have worked, but officials with the Orange Unified School District are calling the curriculum, which helped serve up the experiment, a success.

Parents are responding warmly to the district’s implementation of a new science-oriented curriculum, titled “Our Planet Earth,” at eight elementary schools in session this summer, district officials said.

The new program’s aim is to “make learning fun” for the system’s 2,200 summer students, most of whom rank in the bottom third of their class academically. Officials are considering expanding the program to all the district’s elementary schools in the fall.

“The comments we are getting from parents is that this is the best summer school experience their kids have ever had,” said West Orange Principal Mary Elaine Kunz. “Unless you are a super-scientist, you can put science on the back burner. This program helps the students feel more comfortable with science.”

To institute the program, district teachers attended a special workshop this summer encouraging them to incorporate hands-on science activities into core subjects like language arts, math and social sciences. Among other classroom pursuits this summer, West Orange’s 385 students learned about recycling by making bookmarks from discarded paper, about teamwork by constructing sandcastles, and about centrifugal force by stirring “mini-tornadoes” in water.

“I like summer school better (than regular school) because there are more fun things to do,” said Edgar Lopez, 10, a fourth-grader at West Orange.

While admitting he never expected to be handling them, sixth-grader Ali Kemp, 12, nonetheless seemed especially excited to be dissecting an owl pellet. An owl cannot digest the hair and bones of the prey it ingests, explains West Orange teacher Jon Matson, so it regurgitates the remains on the forest floor. Kemp and other students carefully rummaged through the furry, bony mass and tried to determine which animal the owl had eaten.

“We got ribs here,” said Ali, as he delicately extracted a tiny bone from a pellet. Moments later, there were more discoveries.

“We got a hipbone, we got claws,” Ali happily added. “I got a skull here!”

“The kids really enjoy this,” Matson said. “Especially these kids, because they don’t take to sit-down learning and reading as much. It’s a way to inspire these kids to learn.”

Scientific themes were also woven into the school’s language arts class. Making their own costumes, the students performed a play based on the children’s book “The Great Kapok Tree” by Lynne Cherry. The story offers a parable instructing its audience about the importance of preserving rain forests.

“I learned we should take care of the forest so we can live longer,” said 11-year-old Ryan Archer, a sixth-grader who played the part of a boa constrictor. “And also not to be afraid of snakes.”