Experimenting in the classroom keeps students engaged during remote learning

Feb 23, 2021 | Blog

Principle 1: Daily live instruction engages students and promotes the achievement of grade-level standards. 

A package arrives at students’ front doors with a few seemingly mismatched items: milk, food coloring, and dish soap.   

Science teacher Leton Hall, who works at the Pelham Garden Middle School in the Bronx, has these packages delivered to his students a few days before science lab day so students learning virtually can follow along with the experiment he’ll teach in class.  

From home, students complete the experiment virtually using the supplies he delivers right along with Mr. Hall. Add a few drops of food coloring to the milk — nothing. Together they bring the soap into the equation. Suddenly, students see that the uniform blob of food coloring floating in the milk is almost instantly repelled by the suds.  

The DIY science kits are one of the ways Mr. Hall is trying to bring hands-on, engaging activities to the remote learning experience  

“You have to be willing to do different things, and I’m willing to do different things,” Hall said. “Be willing to do things that maybe you’re not comfortable doing, because it could be a total fail, or it could be fantastic.”