Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/42291
SECONDARY SCHOOLS LACK LABS AND MATERIALS » Teams of students in Teresa Casallas' freshman science class at West High School in Bakersfield dash to work stations, where they per- form quickie experiments for "The Amazing Science Race." They string beads and yarn together to show the visible light spectrum. They rub balloons to create static electricity and make ribbons float in the air above them. They use Play-Doh to create models of volcanoes. They cut out pictures of Earth's continents and glue them together to create Pangaea, the supercontinent that existed about 250 million years ago. Every team wants to finish first and be declared the winner. "I try my best to make science fun and an everyday part of their lives," says Casallas, a member of the Kern High School Teachers Association and Teacher of the Year for Kern County in 2009. "I think kids can relate to what I'm doing. Science should be hands- on, and I let them get down and dirty with science. I don't think it should be all about reading and memorizing facts." She creates activities like "The Amazing Science Race" (based on the reality TV show "The Amazing Race") as an alternative to teaching science out of a textbook. Since her district has scant money for science, she pays for these homemade labs out of pocket. There is no way she could afford money for real lab equipment, but her classroom — a former art room — isn't equipped for science labs anyway. Most science teachers at West High School don't have sinks in their rooms. Casallas recalls students in her biology class having to trek to the bathrooms for running water when doing a lab on DNA synthesis. It was "quite an adventure" in teaching under adverse conditions, she says. Science classrooms are indeed not up to snuff overall. Accord- ing to a policy brief by California Science Education Initiative (CSEI), there is no guarantee that students will work with modern science equipment or any laboratory equipment at all, and the state hasn't provided guidance as to what equipment or materials should be used to provide hands-on learning experiences considered vital in science education. With no minimum level of laboratory expe- rience, equipment or materials established, school districts "can 'certify' they are providing sufficient science instructional materi- als when in fact their students are provided with a clearly inferior science education." There are "big equity issues" when it comes to science educa- tion. The CSEI policy brief describes a school near Sacramento where students have state-of-the-art science classrooms and engage in labs using modern equipment of the same type used in industry and university labs. This unnamed school is compared with another school a few miles away, where classrooms lack lab benches, sinks and other materials normally found in science classrooms, and equipment is aging and in poor condition. In this school, students engage in "paper" labs, where they are asked to predict the outcomes of experiments they are unable to perform. Kevork Madooglu, a teacher at John Burroughs High School in Burbank for 16 years, finds it increasingly difficult to teach AP physics and chemistry with aging equipment that's badly in need of repair. He points out hot plates and electric balances that are unusable, because there's no money for repairs or replacement. "Last year, our entire budget for equipment and supplies was $2,000 for 14 teachers," says Madooglu, a member of the Burbank Teachers Association. "It's definitely not enough; we need twice that amount to continue the way we have been teaching." Science teachers at the school signed a petition challenging the amount and won an increase — to $4,500 — but this year the amount they're expected to share is down to $1,000. "We're protesting again, but we can't do this every year," says Madooglu. "Budget cuts have impacted the way I teach," he says. "I have been doing fewer labs with my students, so it's less interesting and less hands-on. I'm doing more demonstrations for them if they can't do the experiments themselves." It shouldn't be like that, says Madooglu, who emi- grated from Turkey partly because he was impressed with America's enthusiasm for science during the Space Race era. "In the '60s and '70s, science was promoted and kids were encouraged in every pos- sible way to go into science. That's not happening anymore. It's been pushed to the back burner in every possible way." ABOVE: Jerry Ziemer's hair provides a charge for Casey Ross's balloon experiment in Bakersfield. 16 California Educator / September 2011