The squeals of excitement can be heard throughout the courtyard outside the new science lab at Juan Cabrillo Elementary School. Mrs. Young’s fourth grade class is mixing baking powder with vinegar and blowing up a balloon with the gas produced. The new lab enables the students to not only read about but also conduct experiments-hands on.
“Different children learn differently,” said Amy Yeager, the lab’s instructor. “Hands-on work is an amazing instructional tool. It helps cement the ideas they read about in textbooks.”
The new lab, funded by the PTA, provides a dedicated space where students from all grade levels can conduct experiments and observe scientific theories in action.
“We had this goal for an in-house, hands-on science lab for awhile,” said PTA Executive Vice President Cathy Egner. “We are really thrilled with it so far.”
Lab instructor Amy Yeager brings to her first teaching job a background in business and marine biology. Most recently, she worked on the dive team at the Long Beach aquarium.
“I loved the work but realized I wanted to be teaching elementary school,” Yeager said.
Yeager wanted to show kids that science is not just math and that it can be fun. At one point during the experiment the students started chanting “Science.” Yeager’s face lights up at their excitement.
“This is an amazing job!”
Each week, 14 classes visit Yeager’s lab-which used to house Malibu High School students while their building was being renovated. During the first week she introduced the students to the scientific method and to the classroom, including its inhabitants such as a tank full of catfish and guppies (a tarantula is coming soon).
While in the science lab, the students complete experiments and other projects relating to their classroom curriculum.
“I stay away from the text experiments so teachers can do some in their classrooms too,” Yeager said.
Each science lab session is organized and structured, starting with a hypothesis and ending with a journal entry about the results of the experiment. Even the youngest students follow the routine. For example, the first graders hypothesized about what color would emerge when two other colors were mixed together.
The science lab is just one of several programs funded by the PTA. The group also supports the art program, the music program and the computer lab. From its operating budget of $158,000 this year, the PTA earmarked $15,000 to set up the science lab. The group has spent about half of that money so far, according to Egner.
“This PTA is outstanding,” Yeager said. “They know how important these programs are and they make them happen.”
The PTA also pays the teacher salaries for those programs and pays to have aides in the classrooms. Much of Juan Cabrillo’s PTA fundraising is done through a direct contribution campaign at the beginning of the year.
“If the state does not prioritize education, parents have to step up to the plate,” Egner said. “Malibu is a community of intelligent people who value education and afterschool programs.”
The new lab will be dedicated Oct. 18 at 6 p.m. Juan Cabrillo Elementary School is located at 30237 Morning View Drive.