River models and young students; redesign continues.

Last week Andrew Podoll , a graduate fellow working with SIUC’s NSF-funded GK-12 Heartland Ecological/Environmental Academic Research Training (HEART) borrowed one of our Em2 models for a local elementary school’s “science night.”  He and the model were huge there, and I was excited to hear that parents of autistic students noted their kids opened up with the models.

Andrew’s experience reinforced a hypothesis we’re working on, that small models like ours are remarkably compelling to students and may be near perfect science teaching tools.  Kids are fascinated by the water-sand interaction, and can see, touch, and control most of the variables.

Thanks to Andrew for doing this, it made my week.  If a current proposal is funded by NSF, this will be happening a lot, and I’ll be very happy about that.

And here’s a photo of me working in the shop today, with a mock-up of a leg attachment design.