Winnng New York Team
PASCO Assists Award-Winning Team
From William P. Kiley
Educational Technology Department, Long Island University

In early 2001, the American Association for the Advancement of Science announced the guidelines for their annual International Public Science Day competition. The theme of [the] competition was: "Science is power: energy is everywhere."

Among the proposals submitted from around the country was one from a collaborative partnership on Long Island, N.Y. The three partners were the Long Island Museum of Science and Technology, the Nassau Technology Educators Association and the Electronic Education Village, which is coordinated by Long Island University.

The [group] proposed a hands-on, inquiry-based science project called "Keep the Heat." The project would challenge students to construct testing chambers, within provided specifications, wire the box with a light bulb and then use the box to test the potential insulating value of recycled materials as home insulation. "Keep the Heat" was one of only 12 proposals selected to compete.

As teachers and students became interested in the project, some of them who had used probeware in the past inquired about the possible use of probes and software that would enable them to chart and graph their temperature readings and findings.

One of the participating schools had been using PASCO scientific's probeware and highly recommended it. We contacted the local representative for PASCO, Sal Trupia, who met with us to discuss "Keep the Heat." Sal immediately became an integral partner in the project, conducting workshops for teachers and students on how to use the probes and software. He helped us troubleshoot difficulties encountered in the data collection and he presented a series of mini-orientations on PASCO equipment for some 350 students who visited Long Island University's C.W. Post Campus in March 2002.

Because some of the schools did not have a budget for probeware, additional temperature lab kits were purchased from PASCO and made available to the schools. While not all of the schools used PASCO equipment, the vast majority did. Students in an after-school program in East Harlem, N.Y., participated in "Keep the Heat" and received instruction on how to use the equipment from students from the Beacon School in Manhattan. In each setting, PASCO was a huge hit.

On June 3, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Unisys Corp. presented "Keep the Heat" with the top prize in the 2002 competition. At the ceremony, news reporters had a chance to see PASCO equipment up close. Through this great collaboration of students, teachers, educational partners and the support of PASCO, hundreds of students in schools from New York to Russia had the opportunity to see science in a very different, challenging and meaningful way.