LAWRENCE: A night of discovery for students

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
   How do you make elephant toothpaste?
   Simple – mix some water, oxygen and yeast in a bottle.
   Screams filled the air at the Lawrenceville Elementary School, as the foam — or elephant toothpaste — overflowed the bottle and children reached out to touch it.
   ”Eeew, that doesn’t feel right,” one child said.
   Elephant toothpaste was one of many science experiments and hands-on exhibits set up in the school’s all-purpose room, the media room, the art room and a couple of classrooms for the school’s Science and Discovery Night on Friday.
   The goal of the annual event, which has become quite popular, is to educate children in grades K-3 to the different aspects of science and discovery, said Jennifer Hsiao, who coordinated the event. It is sponsored by the LES Parent Teacher Organization.
   ”It is important for students to have an appreciation for what is out there in the world — for a hands-on experience,” Ms. Hsiao said. “They get to try some experiments. It gets their minds turning, what they could do down the road.”
   The children had a range of booths and exhibits to visit. Gum Drop Engineering encouraged the children to figure out whether a pyramid or a cube — both made up of gumdrops and toothpicks — would be able to support a book placed on top of it.
   At another booth — “Your Nose Knows” — children could match smells. They sniffed the contents in one container and then sniffed the contents of another container, and had to pair the two. The objective is to help the children learn how to classify and to develop their sense of smell.
   And at the Junior CSI booth, children learned about fingerprints. They made their own fingerprints, and tried to match the different whirls on a card to the ones on their own hands.
   But perhaps one of the most popular exhibits was the petting zoo that Charis Matey brought to the Science and Discovery Night event. Although “Feathers Scales and Fur” was located down the hall at the other end of the school, children soon discovered it.
   Outside the classroom, pens had been set up to contain a young kangaroo, a phennic fox, a marmoset and several baby goats. Inside the classroom, there was a baby pot-bellied pig and some snakes.
   ”Hi, goat,” one young boy said.
   But another youngster held his nose, commenting that “it smells” as he walked past the pens.
   The 3-week-old pot-bellied pig was the star of the show, drawing many children to the pen. Some put their hands inside the cage, and the piglet sniffed their arms and tried to climb up on them. Although he would have been easy to pick up and pet, a fully-grown pot-bellied pig weighs about 100 pounds.
   Ms. Matey pulled out an African ball python from its box, and asked a young girl if she would like to wear him around her neck.
   ”No,” was her terse answer.
   While some children were eager to try it, others backed off quickly from the snake.
   ”I don’t want to touch it. Let me out of here. I gotta go wash my hands,” one child said.