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70 Students Race Machines in Science Experiment FUTURES Foundation for Volusia Schools Grant Funds Project DELAND, FL (March 18, 2009) -Turie T. SmallElementary Teacher Carol Youngman combined a thousand-dollar mini-grant from the FUTURES Foundation for Volusia County Schools and a 'Birthplace of Speed'-style idea for teaching science to her fifth grade students. The result can be seen this Friday, March 20, as 70 students take science for a spin, racing their machines in a project designed to demonstrate force, motion, friction, simple machines, acceleration, potential and kinetic energy, and the scientific method.
At 1:45 p.m., all four fifth-grade classes will take their cars to TurieTSmallElementary School's pavilion for a competition to see which team's car travels farthest. It could have been a dry lesson in preparation for FCAT Science tests. Instead, Youngman designed hands-on activities to address the Sunshine State Standards in Science: 'The students made Fold-N-Roll cars by Pitsco, where they had to cut them out, build them, adding wheels and axles, and this one activity alone addressed numerous benchmarks my students were tested on,' she said. 'They will use the scientific method to form a hypothesis, gather data and come up with a conclusion,' Youngman said. 'Students had to learn teamwork is the key to success -- and following procedures correctly -- and it is important in all methods to learn science and that, to gather accurate data, an experiment must be repeated.'
This is Youngman's 10th year as a FUTURES Mini-Grant recipient. 'Without the help of FUTURES,' she said, 'my students would not have the opportunities to learn some tough science benchmarks by using hands-on methods to be successful.' In 2008, FUTURES surpassed the $1,000,000 mark in funding for classroom mini-grants. Established in 1985 to increase business and community involvement in public schools and to provide programs and activities beyond the financial capabilities of the school district, the nonprofit foundation is the only organization that provides assistance to all public schools in VolusiaCounty. For information, visit www.futuresvolusia.org.
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