Application vs. theory

Students see science, math lessons put to work

By:Mary Ellen Zangara
   Sixth-graders at Alexander Batcho Intermediate School learned science can be tasty or colorful Friday, as they participated in the school’s first Math and Science Career Day. The school held a daylong series of programs with demonstrations of how science affects everything from pizza to lipstick to music.
   Valerie Yurinko, math teacher, and science teacher Amy Dickinson worked together with the other sixth-grade teachers — Cheryl Gill, Margaret Balzano and JoAnn Morella — to prepare for the day.
   "This was the first time that we have attempted this in the sixth grade since I have worked in ABIS," said Ms. Yurinko. The staff began preparing for the day in November by recruiting speakers.
   "We had students mention various careers and we tried to focus on these fields and how what we were teaching was relevant," Ms. Yurinko said. "The new math curriculum calls for some type of math day to be held in each school. Since this was the first year, we decided to start with one grade level and then progress from there. We wanted to ensure success the first time around."
   Science teacher Ms. Dickinson also saw an opportunity to use such a day to show students some of the many ways scientific knowledge can be used.
   "Our science curriculum is in the process of being revised therefore we used this as a gateway to provide insight to our students on possible uses of their scientific knowledge," she said.
   Four speakers presented the classes with new scientific experiences. Barbara Tofani, a registered nurse and the director of the Center for Nursing and Health Careers at the New Jersey Hospital Association, spoke to the students about how math and science were used in their daily routines. She also spoke about the daily routines in the nursing field and offered some guidance in preparation for a health career.
   During her first presentation, Ms. Tofani and the class were filmed by the crew of NJN for an upcoming segment on the New Jersey Network.
   In the Technology Lab, John Tchir, a Manville resident and father of sixth-grader Evanna Tchir, gave a presentation showing just how math and science are involved in the making of lipstick.
   Mr. Tchir is the senior production supervisor for Chanel Inc. and during his presentations he made four different lipsticks (one during each class) giving the students a chance to see how lipstick is made.
   The students were able to come up and check out the process and also viewed a videotape on the process during the class time.
   Another speaker that the students seemed to really enjoy in more than one way was Tom Petrola, an instructor for the culinary arts at the Edison Job Corps Academy in Edison, and his culinary students Naomi Gonzalez, Risa Conner and Curtis Palms.
   Mr. Petrola and his students showed how they use math to prepare a meal for 110 students by making the favorite dish for many ABIS students — pizza. From start to finish, they created pizza and were able to test their class project.
   Matthew Arias, Jessica Cartocci, and Katelyn Hardo put on aprons and got to roll the dough with the help of Curtis Palms. Mr. Palms gave them step by step instructions on how to make a pizza. The best part of this class was getting to eat the pizza.
   Over in the music room, James Balzano used math to help show students how musicians compose music. Mr. Balzano was familiar with ABIS having been in the first eighth-grade class there graduating in 1971. He sat in the same room for his classes as he came back to speak to the students this time as the teacher. He is also the husband of sixth-grade Social Studies teacher Margaret Balzano.
   The students were shown how to write musical notes to become a song and after they were done, Mr. Balzano called them up as he played their original composition on a keyboard. Pawel Maziarz brought his sheet up and the two of them played Pawel’s music for the class.
   All of the students were amazed that they could create a tune.
   Throughout the day, the students were learning about problem solving, mathematical formulas, metric conversions, ratios (musical note values/composing music) computation skills and fractions in math.
   In science classes, they learned force and motion, periodic table of the elements, properties of matter, the metric system and scientific methods.
   The day received positive responses from the students.
   "The math and science day was really good," Eric Kolibas said. "I think the jobs were interesting. I liked when we got to make our own music with Mr. Balzano, Mrs. Balzano’s husband."
   School staff also enjoyed the day, with its opportunities for learning … and pizza. Guidance Counselor Linda Weikel noted how the day’s programming was organized and paid for by the students.
   "I’m very pleased with the cooperation amongst the students and the staff for this science and math day," Principal Jim Brunn said. "I think it’s a needed career awareness building type of presentation and I hope that we could do more of it. I think is great moral for the students and the staff."
   The students started their day with an assembly by Mad Science sponsored by the Alexander Batcho School PTA and continued with four different workshops throughout the day.