Something remarkable is happening at Nora Forester Elementary School in San Antonio, Texas, in teacher Patrice Bravo’s STEM lab — a wonderland of technicolor gears, tools and laboratory doo-dads, all overseen by STEM’s playful patron saint: Albert Einstein, poking out his tongue from a poster on the back wall.
“If the wind is going against your hand, what’s your hand going to do?” Bravo asks, blowing dramatically against her open, upright hand. Today’s lesson: aerodynamics.
“The wind is strong! It makes your hand go ‘Whoa!,’ like this.” Her hand quivers like a sail. “But! If your hand is like this,” she asks, pointing it into the wind, “like an airplane wing?”
The second-graders giggle and chirp their predictions.
Bravo asks student Christopher Olivarez to help by being the wind, and together they perform a playful duet between wind and wing, student and teacher.
This is the remarkable part. While Christopher is a student, he is taller than the other second-graders, his voice deep..
- Saturday, September 7, 2024