Classroom Update | Matt Nicholas

Grant Bartels, Michael Brehm, and Theodore Park
are investigating water's cohesive property 

Written by Matt Nicholas | Change is… insert whatever word you would like: good, necessary, hard, inevitable. Change can be incremental or it can be sweeping. Change can be scary or be welcomed. However you want to look at it, change just is. 

I am a creature of habit, like most midwestern men, I suppose. I have the same coffee, same morning routine, same style of clothes, same beard, etc. So when the unstoppable force of change meets the immovable object of a stubborn 37 year old father of two, something has to give. 

Luckily, I have dozens of wonderful role models in accepting change. The students of the newly consolidated Exeter-Milligan-Friend Public Schools have been through a lot of change in the last few months, and have shown what we knew all along, that they are capable, adaptable young people willing to accept a challenge. 

Something that sticks out to me is the teamwork exhibited during sophomore biology. We have been studying some basic chemistry topics and looking at the properties of water. Last week we spent a couple of class periods in the lab doing a series of experiments and observing various phenomena. 

How many paperclips can you float on a glass of water? How many drops of water will sit on top of a penny without spilling over the sides? The answers to these questions are, more than you might think! We looked at capillary action in action, we investigated evaporation rates, solubility, and how the shape of water causes so many of its unique properties. 

We did all of this with a 1st period group of 11(no big deal) and a 7th period group of 19! I haven’t had 19 students in a class maybe ever, and definitely not in a laboratory setting, but the EMF students let their curiosity shine and made my job a breeze. I was so impressed to see them work together seamlessly like they had been going to school together for years, all the while, asking great questions and accomplishing their tasks efficiently and effectively. 

So if you need anyone to give you the lowdown on why water does what it does, ask a sophomore! And if you need to teach an old dog(or wolf) new tricks, just look to any of your EMF Bobcats for inspiration!