No one expected the bananas to sing.
Despite the wires spilling from a central keyboard neatly clipped to one of a half-dozen yellow fruits, despite the sign declaring “Banana Keyboard” atop the table, middle schooler after middle schooler picked up a banana to be amazed by what they heard.
James Wadsworth STEM Elementary School seventh-grader Martez Jones was one of them.
“I didn’t expect it to start buzzing,” Jones said, laughing. “That was surprising.”
Jones was one of about 100 Chicago Public Schools students who attended the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering’s yearly No Small Matter Molecular Engineering Fair.
The event, one of UChicago PME’s many Educational Outreach programs, brought students from four South Side elementary and middle schools to campus for dozens of interactive science demonstrations led by UChicago PME students and instructional faculty.
“We design this event around the idea that everyone here has something to teach. The learning doesn’t just flow one way,” said Assistant Dean of Education and Outreach Laura Rico-Beck. “When a PhD student has to find a new way to explain a concept because a sixth-grader isn’t connecting with their first answer, that’s not a detour — that’s the point.”
Students spent the morning exploring hot ice, trying to beat each other in mazes set up with mirror and laser, creating gooey alginate worms, playing quantum tic-tac-toe (they could play X, O or a superposition of X and O) and, of course, cranking out a tune on the banana keyboard.
“I don’t need my students to be excited about every single thing they see or do, but by doing this many things, they usually find something that gets them excited,” said Patrick Papczun, a math and science teacher at William H. Ray Elementary School.
The bananas’ appeal
It’s the potassium that makes bananas sing, explained UChicago PME PhD candidate Tracy Asamoah.
“Bananas are known to have potassium, which is a great mineral, but realize that we can use this for a circuit,” she said. “When we connect an electric wire to these bananas, we can see that we can transfer the sounds from this piano to the banana due to it having these ions.”
Part of the appeal is that students learn from actual molecular engineering researchers, students and instructors.
“I tell them they’re meeting real scientists,” said Mark Sheridan Math & Science Academy teacher Nicole Giubilino. “I tell them, ‘You’re meeting the minds that are doing the research, they’re doing the studies, they’re making the discoveries, and you’re going to be a part of that.’”
Of course, the ability to face off in laser battles against your buddy is also a draw, as Ray sixth graders Lawson Thomas and David Bakkum discovered. The pair played a game where they took turns placing mirrors to guide a laser beam to separate spots in a maze (Bakkum won). But the fun came with a lesson: Those same lessons in light-bending help fiber optic cables create the internet.
“Kids get really competitive and very into this activity, because you’re playing as two teams against each other,” said PhD candidate Swathi Chandrika. “But my favorite part is at the end, when they realize how it relates to real life.”
The future of science
No Small Matter is one of a slate of offerings designed to connect UChicago PME to the community. While No Small Matter, the MSI STEM Showcase, Battery Day and Junior Science Cafés connect kids and families with working scientists, ongoing professional development programs like TeachQuantum help teachers incorporate cutting-edge science into their lessons.
UChicago PME Assistant Instructional Professor Adarsh Suresh has participated in Outreach events since he was a graduate student.
Suresh’s demonstrated how structure and architecture can give materials new properties by stacking piles of textbooks on a structure held up by Post-it Notes and by having students try (and fail) to wrest apart two telephone directories where the pages had been shuffled together.
“I usually start with something they can see or touch and build the science from there,” Suresh said. “That’s why the Post-it pillar demo works so well, I first destroy their faith by showing how easily things collapse, then rebuild it as they discover just how strong simple structures can be. It turns a surprisingly deep question about where strength comes from into something they can play with, test, and react to in real time, and for once this is the kind of experiment where you actually can try this at home.”
Amelia Earhart Options for Knowledge School sixth-grader (and failed phone book wrestler) Sebastian Pickett said No Small Matter’s interactive format made the day.
“I thought we were going to go from table to table and it was going to be like a conference, like a TED Talk,” he said. “This was pretty surprising and a lot more fun.”
Michelle Warden, STEM coordinator at Wadsworth, called it a “win-win situation.”
“It’s a win for the university students, because they are getting to articulate and practice what they’re learning, sharing it with a broader audience – students and adults like me who wouldn’t necessarily know what any of this is,” Warden said. “And then it’s a win for my students, because they’re getting introduced to concepts that wouldn’t come until high school or maybe even college level.”
It’s also an investment in the future of science, said UChicago PME PhD candidate India Wesley-Cardwell.
“There are these small moments that, if you get excited about them, they’ll stick in students’ heads. One day they’ll think, ‘I remember that hot ice reaction, and I think chemistry is cool, and I just want to go for it.’ Being a part of that helps the future of science,” she said, adding, “And hopefully they’ll come back here to UChicago PME.”