A Major Discovery Kids Learn to Love Science in Hands-On Program Offered at UC Irvine

Pilar Rodriguez might not wear a tan fedora or faded leather jacket, but you can call her Indiana Jones anyway.

Pilar, 10, and classmates from several elementary, middle and high schools are learning about archeology this week by digging for shards of pottery at a pit on the UC Irvine campus.

“My dream is to find a whole new animal that’s never been discovered!” said Pilar, who is participating in the Kids Investigating and Discovering Science program at UCI.

About 180 children from second through 10th grades are learning about Mesoamerican civilizations through the three-week bilingual program, which offers mainly Latino students from 10 Santa Ana schools--and a sprinkling of others in Southern California--a chance to discover science.

The program was started four years ago by UCI Prof. Eloy Rodriguez, who wanted to encourage Latino children, especially girls, to pursue science. Rodriguez has left UCI for a teaching position this fall at Cornell University, but the program will continue in his absence, teachers said.

Before the start of this year’s program, which ends Friday, teachers bought an assortment of Aztec-style knickknacks from Tijuana, shattered them in pieces and buried them in a vacant campus area. Later, students excavated the pieces, measured and plotted their locations, and talked in class about how items like pots and fetishes were used by ancient peoples.

“Teachers really have noticed a difference among these kids when they look at their interest in science later,” associate director Nydia Hernandez said. “It’s all hands-on, which keeps them interested.”

On a recent morning, eight sixth- and seventh-graders stooped under a canvas tent and scraped at the earth. They dug a patch of clay soil near the corner of Bridge and Mesa roads, recording on paper maps every pottery chunk they found.

Lauro Salgado, a seventh-grader from Lathrop Intermediate School, hit pay dirt when he dug into the middle of a square earthen patch.

“Yeah! I found something!” he yelled.

“Finally,” said Pilar, relieved.

Lauro brushed away the dirt and uncovered a terra cotta Mayan doll head. He pulled out a ruler, plunging it down in the soil to measure how deeply the piece was embedded. “Twenty-five centimeters!” he exclaimed.

Gloria Maldonado, a 20-year-old teacher assistant and UCI junior, said the students also learn subjects such as physics and math while digging for artifacts.

“They take what they’ve found back to the classroom,” said Maldonado, who grew up in Santa Ana. “They make drawings of the pieces, write descriptions, and write what they think people may have used the things for.”

In another classroom, Pico Rivera science teacher Tony Sandoval showed a group of second-graders--all wearing crisp, white lab coats--how to use pulleys to lift heavy weights. People used pulleys to lift the heavy boulders needed to construct pyramids in Mesoamerica, he explained.

Jesse Rodriguez, a Santa Ana teacher, then translated Sandoval’s words into Spanish. Several of the children said “ ohhhhh “ in understanding.

Hernandez said using Spanish puts children at ease. “We don’t want kids not to learn the material because of language barriers,” she said.

It costs about $600 to teach each student, said Crystal Ricaporte, who coordinates the program budget.

The program is funded by a $98,850 grant from American Honda Foundation and about $10,000 from the National Science Foundation, Ricaporte said. Two other teaching projects provide teacher assistants for the program, she said, and the Santa Ana Unified School District lends its buses. Manuel Gomez, UCI associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, also contributes funds from UCI, she said.

Teachers include parents in the lesson plan to strengthen home teaching. Parents often meet in libraries at night to go over homework, and attend seminars where they learn about financial aid available for teen-agers to attend college.

Hernandez, the associate director, said she is particularly concerned with encouraging young women to discover science--so organizers recruited many Latina teachers to serve as role models.

Before the program starts each year, teachers ask each child to draw a picture of a scientist. In last year’s class, “all the girls drew males,” Hernandez said. “But by the end of the program, many drew themselves as scientists.

“Even though many of the kids are from low-income families,” Hernandez said, “we let them know they have a chance at education.”