Traveling Science Road Show Stops By Philadelphia School
By Molly Daly
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Fifth and sixth graders at the Grover Washington Junior Middle School were treated Monday afternoon to a traveling road show that uses hip hop music, dance, and audience participation to teach the basic laws of physics.
It's a collaboration between NASA and the Honeywell Corporation.
The program's called FMA Live!, a name that comes from Isaac Newton's Second Law of Motion: Force = Mass x Acceleration. It features live actors, science demonstrations, and video interviews with NASA engineers, all set to a hip hop beat. The Philadelphia Education Fund's Ambrose Liu says a spoonful of musical sugar helps the physics go down in the most delightful way.
"The music, the rhyming, and the beats appeal to their sensibilities, but they're also learning about science concepts that may otherwise feel intimidated by, or just not get as excited about," Liu said.
As far as the kids were concerned, it worked.
"I learned about motion and gravity all around us, all day."
"It made us feel like we can do it actively, instead of sitting in a class, and doing all that boring stuff."
The program targets middle-schoolers because studies show that's a prime time to get kids hooked on science.
