By James S. Woodman
At P.S. 150’s annual Arts Sciences and Technology Festival last week, second grader Ben Taret explained electromagnetism to his father. After fiddling with several wires connecting his iBook with a high-tech-looking wand, he swept the gadget over some colorful magnets. The iBook’s screen blinked on with flashing data and undulating histograms. “This you see,” Ben said, pointing at the screen, “represents the magnetic field.”
The festival, which began in 2002 to bring families back together after 9/11, gives students an opportunity to not only show off their work but to actively engage learning, said principal Maggie Siena. “It’s one thing to say you understand magnetism,” she said. “It’s another thing to have to explain it to other people.”
All of the Tribeca school’s grades, pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, presented work in the festival.
Admiring an installation of pastel self-portraits drawn on acetate sheets, Madelyn Dzik, a P.S. 150 parent, reflected on the school’s emphasis on the arts. “I think all children need these opportunities,” Dzik said. “We’re lucky this is here.”
With a student body of 200, P.S. 150 is one of the smaller elementary schools in the area. Siena believes that the school’s size contributes to the atmosphere that encourages such a degree of creativity. “There are very few schools this small in the city,” Siena said. “It’s just a really nice community.”
Amid the festival’s rooms brimming with florescent artwork and laptop-aided science experiments, student Maxine Muldev was signaling passersby to look at her discovery. She presented a large potato with red and black wires feeding from its either ends into her silver MacBook. The potato, she explained, is a battery too. Glancing at her MacBook screen she declared, “this potato has 4.6 volts of electricity.”
