New Dimensions Charter School hosts packed Science Night

As one child struggled against a weight almost as large as he was, other students piloted robots and separated DNA from strawberries. Beneath it all, an excited electricity led students from one room to another at New Dimensions Charter School (NDS), eager to try something new.

From boiled eggs to boiling with ice cubes, the NDS Science Night drew families from students across grade levels, inviting learners to meet local vendors demonstrating experiments with different displays, check out student science projects, and extract DNA in the new science lab.

“Our kids are super,” AIG Coordinator Lisa Nichols said. “They’re very into it. They just love to learn and it’s just a great environment for that.”

One of the liveliest rooms in the school housed vendors such as the WPCC Engineering Club, Foothills Conservancy, and the Burke Rescue Squad, who set up hands-on displays for kids to experiment with.

While some children remote-controlled robots across the floors and learned about the Future City competition coming in the spring next year, other students tested their strength against a 65-pound weight using ropes and leverage.

“We’re just doing a little pulley demo and mechanical advantages, trying to get the kids to understand that you can use pulleys to basically lift things easier,” NDS board member and Burke Rescue Squad volunteer Robert Vesile said. “That’s what we use when we have to get people from the gorge or rescue people — it’s a technique that we use that we wanted [them] to see its practical applications … As they lift that 65-pound weight, it’s easier every time you increase the mechanical advantage.”

Across the hall, children excitedly lined up in front of their handmade tri-folds, eager to present the projects they conducted. Nichols explained that kindergarten through third-grade students did classroom projects while fourth- through eighth-graders chose projects to do at the individual level.

Fifth-grader Brookelyn Shafin buzzed as she explained her experiment: hard-boiling eggs and covering half of them in toothpaste, leaving them in various liquids like water, coke, and lemon juice to replicate the effects of toothpaste on the enamel of your teeth.

“The toothpaste actually had less breakdown, less damage on it,” Brookelyn said, pointing at photos of discolored eggs on a trifold that towered above her. “Dad helped me. He was the one taking pictures. I took the spoon and scraped the egg a little bit, and it turned out that was just the toothpaste — the shell was fine.”

Fifth-grader Knox Anthony took a flask of water to four sites in North Carolina that varied in altitude — everywhere from Wrightsville Beach to Mt. Mitchell — and measured the effects of different air pressure on boiling temperatures. For the final experiment, he tested the effects of rubbing an ice cube on the flask of boiled water to see if the water still boiled while cooling.

“When the water’s not boiling, the air pressure is greater than the vapor pressure,” Knox said, holding the empty flask and pointing at graphs and photos as he spoke. “When the vapor pressure gets greater than the air pressure, the water boils. At higher altitudes, there’s lower air pressure and that’s why it doesn’t take as long to boil … Putting the stopper on immediately, creat[ing] a vacuum inside, boiling water at a colder temperature.”

Nichols explained that the school’s smaller size allows for the kind of individualized learning in which many students truly flourish.

“It’s almost like a more relaxed atmosphere here,” Nichols said. “You have that time for creativity and thinking and spending time on projects. Even though we teach the same standards, it’s a little bit easier to fit those in and have fun with them.”

After students explored the science projects, they found their way to the new science lab and extracted DNA from strawberries.

The mini scientists mixed rubbing alcohol and strawberries in a resealable bag, smashing the strawberries and letting them sit for one minute before straining it through a coffee filter and allowing the DNA to float to the top. Then, they slid the extraction under a microscope and observed the genetic makeup.

“The kids are doing all this,” seventh-grade science teacher Stephanie Bridges said. “They have the list out. They have their directions. They’re on their own.”