RESEDA : First-Graders Get Hands-On Science Lesson

For Aurora Vallejos, learning about sea creatures like the lion-fish and spider crab was interesting enough in the classroom, but on a recent trip to the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, the first-grader found she likes the real thing even better.

“I like to see them and touch them,” Aurora said as she watched a brightly colored lion-fish gulp down a goldfish in an aquarium at the magnet school in Reseda.

The 6-year-old was among about 20 first-graders from Reseda Elementary School who took a field trip to the center last week for a hands-on biology lesson from high school students.

“The kids are loving this. Everything is new and different for them,” said Sandra Rodriguez, a senior who helped coordinate the trip. “That’s the whole reason for this--getting them excited about science.”

At various stations around the room, the first graders were tutored by bilingual high school students on subjects ranging from water pollution and ecology to anatomy.

“The relationships they’re building with these kids are just great,” said Dan McDonnell, who teaches biology at the center, and periodically wowed the youngsters with displays of live creatures such as sea urchins and starfish.

McDonnell, along with first-grade teacher Claire Feldman, came up with the idea for the trip after a two-week National Science Foundation snorkeling trip at Catalina Island.

“We decided we’d work together,” Feldman said. “It’s working really well. I can’t even do any teaching here today because these older kids are doing so well.”

Despite its biological origins, the field trip also had a political bent--the school bus that carried the younger kids from the elementary school to the center was arranged for by the Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick.

But if the crawling crabs and crayfish or microscopic views of other organisms proved overwhelming for some of the youngsters, the point of it all wasn’t lost on first-grader Freddy Cruz.

“We have to clean up the trash,” he said. “And don’t ever throw the trash into the water ‘cause the fish are gonna die.”