Located in downtown Los Angeles, in a gated red brick building
with security guards patrolling the street, is Para Los Niños
Charter School, an elementary school that teaches children from the
poorest families in Los Angeles.
It’s an unlikely place for students to learn about the
fundamental aspects of physics, but that’s what happens once
a month through an outreach program the school has with the UCLA
Center for Multi-Scaled Plasma Dynamics.
Physics Professor Steve Cowley and Becky Carter, administrator
for the center, along with several graduate students, make the trip
to Para Los Niños to teach children about physics in ways that
appeal to them.
“A lot of people say you can’t teach physics to
people this young,” Cowley said. “You have to give them
some mechanical feel. It’s an experimental thing, physics at
this level.”
Norma Silva, principal of the charter school, said the school is
made up of children whose parents work in the garment industry, the
flower district and other low-paying jobs.
The school ““ whose name means “For the
Children” ““ is a place where parents can fulfill their
dreams for their children to attain higher levels of education, she
said.
Para Los Niños is also the name of the nonprofit
organization that opened the charter school in 2002.
The organization has existed since 1980 with the goal of
improving the lives of children from the downtown area.
Today, the organization provides services for families living in
impoverished conditions. These include preschool services and
delinquency prevention, as well as family support programs such as
counseling and English as a Second Language classes for
parents.
Lisa Rosenthal Schaeffer, curriculum consultant for Para Los
Niños, said the school takes a hands-on approach to education
and uses all types of methods to make children learn, such as
writing, dancing and using clay.
UCLA initially began working with Para Los Niños when
Cowley’s son was a student in Rosenthal Schaeffer’s
kindergarten and first-grade class seven years ago at Corinne A.
Seeds University Elementary School, located on the UCLA campus.
UES, the laboratory school run by the Graduate School of Education,
teaches 430 children, aged 4 to 12, from all over L.A. County.
Cowley would come into the UES class and share his experiences
as a physicist. Seven years later, Rosenthal Schaeffer asked him to
do the same type of work with Para Los Niños.
The downtown school is part of the Los Angeles Unified School
District, but because it is a charter school, it still has
autonomy. Charter schools are publicly funded, and are based on a
charter between an outside group and a granting body, often a
school
board.
Last Thursday, the physics team brought a tether ball and a
“physicist’s Hot Wheels track,” a wire
contraption in the shape of a diagonal “6.”
The instructors asked for student assistance as they dropped
marbles down the track and swung the tether ball back and forth to
explain to students the transformation from potential to kinetic
energy.
“You can actually learn a remarkable amount of physics
without writing a single equation,” said Russell Neches, a
physics graduate student.
The students were intensely focused on the presentation. When a
marble fell onto the floor after being used for an exercise, a mass
of little bodies dove to the ground in hopes of handing it back to
him. At the end of the demonstration, the students scrambled to get
a good place in line, so they could practice swinging the tether
ball.
The children had to be reminded more than once not to speak
without raising their hand and to keep the rowdiness to a
minimum.
The teaching is based on guiding principals based on current
research, Silva said.
In one class, students made a garden to attract pollinators as
part of their study of the life cycles of plants.
A class studying rocks and minerals recently went on a field
trip to Topanga Canyon.
Another class, learning about force and motion, will soon be
going to Legoland to observe the roller coasters.
Silva said the in-class experiences will allow students to look
at the park in a different way.
Elena Stern, vice president of government and media relations
for the school, said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa emphasized the same
approach to education in last week’s State of the City
address.
Graduate students involved in the program say they also benefit
from the experience.
Gabriel Plunk, a graduate student in plasma physics, said he was
intrigued by the idea of traveling to Para Los Niños and
teaching children.
“It’s a lot of fun. I’ve never done anything
like this before,” he said.
For Eric Wang, a physics graduate student, it’s a learning
experience too.
“You really understand a basic idea when you can teach it
to children who haven’t seen it before,” Wang said.