Wednesday, March 22, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
11
Sisters students learn about ‘Wild Weather’
Sisters Elementary School
students got a special visit
from the Oregon Museum of
Science and Industry (OMSI)
in Portland on Tuesday and
Wednesday last week.
Thanks to a grant from the
Sisters-based Roundhouse
Foundation, Chuck Barnes,
an outreach coordinator for
OMSI, spent Tuesday after-
noon in an assembly talking
about “Wild Weather” with all
of the students.
Barnes immediately cap-
tured the students’ attention
with his energetic style and
Science is fun for students.
outgoing personality. His
presentation included discus-
sions of the two elements that
make weather — temperature
and pressure. Making it snow
indoors, watching a balloon
get sucked into a small jar, and
the fire vortex were all favor-
ite features of the presentation
for the students. Students also
loved the dry ice bubbles from
the Bubbelator 9000. After
several experiments, students
were on their feet cheering for
science.
Barnes’ travel with OMSI
has taken him all over the
western United
States. He says his
job is to “spread
the good word
of science and
inspire students to
say ‘cool! I wanna
know more.’”
“OMSI was
fantastic,” said
second-grade
teacher Gretchen
Lane. “I think it’s
great we can bring
engaging and
interactive science
experiments to the
PHOTO BY ERIN BORLA kids — especially
to demonstrate
those more difficult concepts
with fun and exciting high-
level experiments.”
The following day Barnes
set up a series of brain-teasers
and puzzles in the gymnasium
for a science festival. Students
came in with others from
their grade level and were
able to try different activities
either alone or with a group.
The brain-teasers challenged
students to think differently
about problems in order to
come up with a solution.
There was also a ‘“touch
table” at the event. On the
touch table were a variety of
different skins and hides from
animals from all over, includ-
ing the skin of a reticulated
anaconda — the longest snake
in the world. Students were
able to get their hands on a
bear and pig skull, moose and
deer antlers, and got to see a
complete frog skeleton.
“Everyone wanted to be on
stage during the assembly,”
said Lane. “They were so
excited to come back the next
day and interact more with the
presenter and all of the sta-
tions. It was all they talked
about all day.”
“OMSI was awesome!”
said fourth-grader
Preston Krone. “I fig-
ured out every problem
(in the brain teasers).
The fire vortex on the
record player was very
cool.”
Barnes made sure to
share with the students
how important it is to
stretch their brains, “no
matter what you want
to do — be an artist,
a magician or a scien-
tist — you need your
PHOTO BY ERIN BORLA
brains to learn some-
thing new.”
Live experiments thrilled kids.
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