TIM PRATT
STARKVILLE — As fifth-graders Kelsey Jones, James Travis and Matt Hutchinson sat together Monday morning in Nancy Sistrunk’s class at Ward-Stewart Elementary School, all three had smiles on their faces.
The group had just completed an experiment to see how high rubber balls with different chemical structures and properties would bounce; then they stretched pieces of plastic, with Jones and Travis rising to their feet and pulling hard until the material broke; finally, they were given little glass jars containing three different types of liquid — oil, water and Karo syrup — and dropped in it items like broken toothpicks, cut-up pieces of a straw and metal BBs to compare their densities with the densities of the liquids. The items floated in the liquids with similar densities.
It was a class full of experiments, which taught students about polymers, the macromolecules that make up things in everyday life, from the students’ desks to their jackets to rubber on the soles of their shoes.
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