A Teacher's Point of View

My 8th grade students are like most students today, they can quote 'Napoleon Dynamite' without giving it a second thought and they can recite the lyrics to any given song on the radio. Do they think this will gain them access to an Ivy League college? Will it change the life of their fellow man? I doubt it, but it does entertain them. It got their attention and they learned.

Picture a room full of 13 year olds listening to their teacher ramble on in a lecture about mass vs. weight and how Newton's Laws of Motion really do make sense if you take away things like gravity. It's not a pretty picture. Now imagine that same group of students watching me, their teacher, perform experiments in zero gravity. I just went from a boring old teacher to a superstar in their eyes. Get their attention and you can teach them anything. Teach them they can do anything!

The difference between mass and weight is not an easy concept to teach. In Earth's gravity they are the same. It is not until you change the force of gravity that the difference becomes apparent. I used to tell this to my students until I was blue in the face and they still would not get it. Most teachers have to stop here; they cannot change gravity, but not me! I can show my students the difference. Using nothing more than a small kitchen scale and a couple of wooden cubes glued to the scale, I can open my students eyes wide open. Actual video, taped by someone they actually know, showing that as you go from 1.8 times the force of gravity to zero gravity the mass or the amount of matter an object has, does not change, but the weight does. No textbook could capture this. The greatest teachers of all time could not get my students to understand this as well as a one minute video captured by me their teacher during a Zero-G flight last year.

Newton's Third Law of Motion states that an object in motion will remain in motion until acted upon by a net force and an object at rest will remain at rest until acted upon by a net force. Makes sense to me, but try demonstrating this to an 8th grader. Not an easy job. Darn gravity, what goes up must come down. Teachers are faced with having to tell their students, "Trust me. This really would be true if you could take away gravity." Thanks to a small basketball and hoop I am not one of these teachers anymore. My students can see for themselves that if you shoot a basketball in zero gravity, it continues on in a straight line and that a hoop will float motionless until hit by the basketball which causes the hoop to move in the same direction as the ball was moving. Such a simple thing to do, but it has such a dramatic effect on student understanding. This experiment took the blah, blah, blah out of teaching and made it real!

While to some these may seem like small little demonstrations, to my students they are invaluable. I was able to accomplish the same things movies and music do … capture the attention of a 13 year old. While my students did not learn lines or music, they learned science. Not only do they understand concepts better, but they see people they know, people they can relate to, doing things they never thought possible. If their teacher can fly in zero gravity, what does the future hold for them? Are there any limits to the possibilities? I realize that not everyone of my students will grow up and become a scientist, but I know that I have and will continue to have moments where they realize that "Hey, science is cool!" or "I could do that!" This is what every teacher strives for: That moment when you have the undivided attention of your students, when you can look into their eyes and see the understanding. Total cost of the experiments, $5. Seeing that light bulb of knowledge flicker in the eyes of my students … priceless!