Sixth grade students in Mrs. Nicole Brighouse’s class at Franklin school in Rahway participated in a Virtual lab through the Students 2 Science program based in East Hanover, NJ. Students 2 Science is an innovative program that links local classrooms to working scientists by bringing challenging STEM based experiments to the classroom.
Mrs. Brighouse’s 6th grade classroom was turned into a functioning lab environment. An experiment was then led virtually, via video conferencing, by a scientist at the East Hanover lab facility and facilitated in the classroom by a volunteer Merck scientist.
The students conducted an experiment entitled “Glow it up”. Students worked with their lab partners, under the guidance of the virtual scientist and Merck scientist present in the class, to investigate the best method for illuminating a space without the presence of a spark. This led into a lesson on “glow sticks” and an experiment which explained how the glow sticks work. Not only did the Franklin students gain scientific knowledge they were connected with a professional scientist who demonstrated to them the inner workings of a real laboratory and revealed what it looks like doing actual scientific experiments for a living.
(left) McKiethen, Syed, Richie, and Marlon are being guided through the lesson by Mrs. Nicole Brighouse.
