All Hands on the Poop Deck

Mike Fritz, who helped me in the classroom this term, shared his experience 

with his co-workers at the US Environmental Protection Agency: 

As I strode to the front of Ms. Molly Moran's second grade class at 
Annapolis Elementary School one June morning in downtown Annapolis, I 
was confident in my lesson plan, so elegantly simple that I didn't even 
need the 3X5 index card in my shirt pocket on which I had it drawn out. 
My former boss at EPA's Wetlands Division, John Meagher (now retired), 
had invited me to talk about what I do in my work.  He would do his 
lesson first.  I had scoped out his topic and had identified a 
meaningful connection between his talk and mine.  He was going to teach 
a hands-on, desk-top laboratory lesson about buoyancy, including a key 
vocabulary word "gravity."  (Did you know that a lacrosse ball sinks in 
fresh water but floats in salt water?)  "Gravity", I decided, was my 
link.  The audience would be primed.  I had decided on the audience 
participation approach, to put the pen into their little hands.  It was 
my turn. 
 
On the flip chart I drew a hillside, a single black line, with wavy blue 
water at the bottom of the hill, the Bay, just like right outside the 
classroom window.  A stick-figure person.  A lolli-pop green tree.  A 
cloud.  A fish in the water.  A swimmer.  Rain.  "Where does the water 
go when it rains?"  "Down to the Bay" "Why?"  One smart kid:  "Gravity" 
"How many of you have or know people who have dogs?"  All the hands went 
up.  Another volunteer drew a red dog on the hillside.  Then the 
clincher: "What do dogs do when you take them out to walk in the 
morning?"  The entire chorus:  "THEY POOP!"  Ms. Moran interrupted: 
"Oh, Mr. Mike, you just got them to say their favorite word!"  The 
audience, giggling, was rapt.  "Wait!" I said, fumbling around the 
front desk, "There's no brown marker!"  Ms. Moran stopped the lesson 
until she could find one.  There was no shortage of volunteers to draw 
the little brown pile behind the dog.  It was not exactly to scale. 
"Where does that poop go when it rains?"  "To the Bay"  "Why?"  " 
Gravity!"  "How do you think the fish and the swimmer feel about that?" 
"Yech!"  "What do you think you can do about that?"  And they knew that 
answer too.  And the lesson was over.  I haven't had that much fun since 
the last time I caught a steelhead on a fly rod in a snowstorm. 
Seriously, if you like kids half as much as I do and care about the 
future of the world, combine the two by volunteering with John in the 
ReSet program.  John has the lesson plans; you and the kids have the 
fun. 
  
ReSET is a D.C.-based non-profit volunteer organization that partners 
working and retired scientists, engineers, and technicians with 
elementary school teachers to improve science motivation and literacy. 
ReSET's goal is to introduce children in the classroom to science, 
engineering and technology as being enjoyable and exciting (i.e., fun!). 
Find them at  www.resetonline.org