What is "Noon Science?" Noon Science is a wild, fantastic group activity, usually best for Elementary School grades (1-5), held bi-weekly during lunch period, in which students are able to perform an individual experiment which they can take home with them when the session is finished.  The experiments are usually from the group of Physical Sciences (physics, chemistry, engineering) that can be finished in a single (or at most two sessions) lunch period.  It is usually organized by PTA parents at the school in question.

Cooking a hot dog.  The hot dog is wrapped in black aluminum foil and is hanging from a pair of strings suspended from the long, horizontal stick.

Things You'll Need to Implement "Noon Science" At Your School Space     A dedicated space (we'll call it an activity site) is an absolute necessity for performing Noon Science.  This can include a section of an auditorium, multipurpose room or unused classroom, but the space must be clear and free for at least 1 1/2 hours before (for setup) and for 1/2 hour after the actual activity (for tear-down and clean-up).  It can even be outside if the weather is decent, and indeed, some of the activities (solar cooker, sundial) depend on a sunny day.

Physical Layout    Large worktables are really helpful for spreading out materials and kids.  Long tables work particularly well;  a set of materials for each student is placed in advance at each child's position.  One table that measures 10 feet by 2 feet can fit about 10 kids (5 on each side).  The fancy tables shown here fold and have wheels.  But one could just as easily make tables from a half-sheet of 4'x8' plywood and some sawhorses.  You could put hinges in the middle and use three stackable sawhorses per long table at a cost of perhaps $75 per long table. Distributing materials in advance to each "workstation"  takes considerable time, but allows students to get to work immediately after receiving instructions.  Having students wait in long lines to pick up materials at distribution stations is a complete non-starter because it chews up valuable work time during the short lunch period.

The workspace has been set up and the kids are getting instructions off to the right. The workspace has been roped off to reduce the temptation that the kids have of just diving right into the project before they find out what they're doing.

The kids have drifted into the activity center with their lunches and are watching a video about the project they're about to perform. A collection of parent volunteers in the background are also watching because they're probably seeing the exercise for the first time, too.

Time     It is very difficult to perform a complete experimental observation in less than 25 minutes, and many schools allocate only 15 minutes for eating, followed by 20 minutes for some sort of recreation.  The logistics of a Noon Science program will vary from school to school and will depend radically on the flexibility of the administration and teachers at your school.      One of the biggest difficulties is the problem of not having a fixed start time:  kids will start and finish lunch at different times and show up at the activity site at different times, creating chaos for any experiment that requires giving instructions.  One technique that we've found that solves this problem is to actually have kids bring their lunches to the Noon Science activity site.  Kids will drift in over a period of 5 or more minutes and will begin to calm down as they start eating.  This is an ideal time to begin to provide instructions to the entire group.  We even go so far as to create a short video that provides the instruction needed for the experiment, hopefully no longer than 4 or 5 minutes.  The video may be repeated at least once to insure that all kids see the video as they float into the activity space.  The kids who have seen the video a first time will still stay glued to any video presented a second time.

Grade Levels    This is one of the trickiest issues to resolve.  An activity that is simple enough for a first grader may seem trivial and boring to a 5th grader.  Or an activity requiring the manual dexterity of a 5th grader will be impossible and frustrating for a 1st grader.  There are several possibilities:    1.  Alternate weeks for grades 1-3 and 4-5.  Sometimes the same experiments can be used for each session, but since the number of students will be less for each session, there is more time for the available volunteers to focus their attention on the grades 1-3 students.    2.  Staged activity.  This simply means that grades 4-5 make more progress on their experiment than grades 1-3.  However, this puts an incredible burden on the designer of the experiment to incorporate both simple and complex activities.   3.  A conscious choice to "favor" grades 1-3.  We have found that these grades are so incredibly enthusiatic about participating in this sort of activity, that it is worthwhile to simplify the experiments to insure a successful completion in these grades.   4.  Incorporating grades 4-5 as helpers.  Many times the 4th and 5th graders enjoy helping out the children in grades 1-3.  A natural filtering process occurs after the program is run for several weeks;  only 4th and 5th graders who enjoy being mentors to the children in grades 1-3 show up after awhile.

The kids are receiving instructions on the experiment to be performed.  They're particularly attentive this time because they're finding out how to make ice cream.  It seems that the 4th and 5th graders have arrived early and have taken up seats near stage right.  A few 2nd and 3rd graders are dispersed over on stage left and it looks like the 1st graders are a little slow in arriving this day.

Jan is showing the kids how to mark their filter paper with the various "unknown" marking pens used in the chromatography experiment.  If you're lucky, you'll find that you've got a whole bunch of educated and under-utilized parents in your school who are enthusiastic about sharing their knowledge with kids.

Volunteers    Lots of adult volunteers are needed for set-up before the activity, usually at least an hour and a half in advance.  Of course, they are needed during the actual activity and for a short time afterwards for cleanup.  Our experience is that at least one adult is required for every 20 students.  Our turn-outs of 120 students for our more popular experiments often overwhelmed our crew of 5 adults;  the better the job the parents did in creating fun activities, the more students showed up.  Of course, volunteers are needed for the task of choosing experiments, collecting and fabricating materials, distribution to workstations before the experiment, and clean-up afterwards.

Money    An arbitrary goal that we set was to try to create experiments for under $2 per student and, as of 2008, this goal can be a stretch.  And indeed, this goal really is arbitrary and will depend on the resources of the PTA at your school and the largess of parent contributors.  The simple fact is that the amount of time spent in preparation far overwhelms the cost of materials.	The kids are in the middle of the circuits lab.  The material cost for this lab actually did come to about $2 per student, but just fabricating the circuit cards (cut cardboard and pattern to size, glue together and drill in stacks of 20 at a time) took about 3 hours for 120 sets.
Noon Science at Nixon Elementary School is no longer associated with Sci-Experiments.com. Please contact the L. M. Nixon Elementary School PTA or the Nixon Elementary School website for information (www.nixon.pausd.org). Thanks!