EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES
ORNL RESEARCHERS MEET YOUNGSTERS AT THE ENVIRONMENTAL FAIR
This article also appears in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Review (Vol. 26, No. 1), a quarterly research and development
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ENVIRONMENTAL FAIR ENERGIZES YOUNG MINDS
The grounds of the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak
Ridge were a bustle of activity on October 9, 1992, as nearly 3000
area middle-school students streamed in and around candy-striped
carnival tents at the first Oak Ridge EnvironMENTAL Fair sponsored
by the Department of Energy through its Environmental Restoration
Program. Several ORNL researchers interacted with the students and
provided information through exhibits and demonstrations in areas
such as mercury pollution, indoor radon, degradation of toxic PCBs,
and analysis of arsenic levels in the hair and nails of President
Zachary Taylor.
Attending the fair for a day of fun and environmental education
were sixth, seventh, and eighth graders from Anderson, Roane, Rhea,
Meigs, and Loudon counties and city school districts within the
selected five counties. Also included were students from the
Tennessee School for the Deaf (Knoxville) and Vine Middle School,
both of which are part of the "Adopt-a-Schools" program sponsored
by Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc.
"We really want to involve the surrounding communities in our
programs and help them understand all of the hard work that is
under way in Oak Ridge related to the environment," said Bob
Sleeman, director of Environmental Restoration (ER) for DOE in Oak
Ridge. "Of course," Sleeman continued, "we also wanted to make the
experience a lot of fun. It's a great way to learn about some very
basic issues concerning environmental cleanup work as well as
overall global environmental problems and solutions."
Once inside the tents, the students met scientists and workers from
ORNL, the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant, the Oak Ridge K-25 Site, and area
DOE contractor employees who offered hands-on learning about
environmental work taking place on the Oak Ridge Reservation. More
than 50 booths of scientific demonstrations, experiments, and
activities related to environmental awareness were featured.
Students and teachers seemed hard pressed to decide which activity
to get involved with next. Rebecca Burnette, an eighth-grade
teacher from Ten Mile Elementary in Meigs County, stood and scanned
the swarm of students. "It's a challenge to learn so much in such
a short period of time," she said. "So much of what we have studied
in our classes is represented here. The kids are just really
amazed. I'm sure when we go back to school, chapter by chapter
we'll look back and say `remember that at the fair?' "
Fran DeLozier, director of the Environmental Restoration Program
for Energy Systems said that's just what the program is striving to
do through the EnvironMENTAL Fair. "We want to impress upon the
students the importance of environmental restoration," she said.
"ER is a 30-year program. Some of the kids here at the fair today
will be the scientists doing the cleanup work of tomorrow."
Pamela Jetter, who teaches fifth grade at the Tennessee School for
the Deaf, said the fair was shedding entirely new light on the
subject of the environment for many of her students. "Some of them
have not really been aware of environmental issues," she said.
"Some have the chance to watch closed-captioned television news
programs, so they see environmental news. Others don't. I think the
fair is a good opportunity for them to be introduced to new
concepts."
For instance, at a booth demonstrating the dilemmas of waste
disposal, some of her students were unfamiliar with the notion of
a landfill. "But after I pointed the word out to them and explained
what a landfill is and that many are filling up, they became very
interested and excited," she said.
A few examples of other environment-related demonstrations included
the "Inchworm," an ORNL robot equipped with a TV camera that
inspects pipes by crawling through them; an explanation of
radiation found in everyday items; naturally occurring microscopic
"bugs" that eat waste; and high-tech methods for treating
industrial wastewater.
"All in all, it looks like the fair accomplished exactly what was
intended because the students learned a lot about the environment
and had fun in the process," Sleeman said. "If we can get them
excited about science and the environment at this stage, they will
carry it with them forever and will be instrumental in making their
world a cleaner, better place to live."
DeLozier pointed out that the fair could never have taken place
without the support of more than 300 volunteers from Energy
Systems, DOE, and DOE contractor employees. "This event," she said,
"is just another example of the commitment these employees have to
the local community."
--Wayne Scarbrough
COMPUTER NETWORK LINKS LOCAL SCHOOLS WITH WORLD
Teachers and students at three Oak Ridge schools will soon have the
world at their fingertips via the Oak Ridge Educational Network
(OREN). Developed at ORNL, this wide-area computer network will
allow access to such educational resources as the Earthquake
Information Center, the Library of Congress, the National Weather
Service, and the Lunar and Planetary Institute.
The development and implementation of the OREN prototype, which was
funded by DOE, could set the stage for establishment of wide-area
educational networks originating from other DOE national
laboratories, providing teachers and students access to technology
and information that would otherwise be out of their reach.
Users of the network will have a direct connection to a collection
of worldwide computer networks, known as the Internet. They will be
able to access public data bases, major university libraries, and
electronic mail, which will allow them to communicate with
researchers and other educators from around the globe.
Approximately one million people use the Internet daily.
In cooperation with the Oak Ridge school system and SURAnet, the
regional provider of Internet services, the system has been
installed at three Oak Ridge schools--Jefferson Junior High School,
Robertsville Junior High School, and Oak Ridge High School.
The exposure to this type of educational resource will enable
students in grades K-12 to better develop the research skills
necessary to function in the global community of the 21st century.
"Several teachers have already begun to plan ways of incorporating
information location, gathering, and assessment into their
classrooms, so this project will give us the ability to identify
what teachers need and can actually use in the classroom, how
students can use the network to supplement their other school
resources, and how school administrators will manage and use
information resources as we enter the next century," said John
Wooten, principal investigator for the OREN project.
--Bunny Tharpe
(keywords: environmental education, computer education)
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Date Posted: 1/26/94 (ktb)