ALBERTON – Students from kindergarten age to the sixth grade at the Alberton Elementary School celebrated the arrival of a wide array of new, hands-on learning tools last week with a science fair.

The school was able to acquire the “Science Units” with the help from an $8,000 grant received from the Plum Creek Foundation and one of the requirements for the funding was they hold science fairs to foster an interest in a wide variety of scientific disciplines. For kindergarteners, the science unit will allow students to study oceans, trees, weather, insects, arachnids, health, nutrition, the human body and the senses.

First graders will be able to study butterflies, moths, the development of seeds into plants, water and they will be able to observe an aquarium. When students reach the second grade, they will study food chains and webs, physics such as force and motion as well as plant and animal populations.

In the third and fourth grade, young people in Alberton will learn about color and light, magnets, plant and animal life cycles and they will also study weather using specialized instruments. In the fifth grade, students will learn about fungi, flight and rocketry in addition to electromagnetism. Sixth graders, as a result of the grant, will have the opportunity to educate themselves about erosions and simple machines.

Alberton School District Superintendent Clay Acker said the new science units would provide students the opportunity to put down their textbooks for a bit and learn using tools with real world applications.

“These are hands-on science materials,” Acker said. “They will learn about basic biology, force and motion, simple machines, magnets and other things. The kids will put together projects in those areas and then they put them on display. The teachers really like what they are doing. It’s hands-on and not textbook stuff. With this, they actually get to do stuff and not just read a textbook. They create projects and learn that way. They get to observe real animals and real plants. There are all kinds of cool things they get to do.”

According to Acker, the grant requires the school to hold several science fairs throughout the year to display students’ work with the new science units. Plans are to hold one at the spring concert and another at the art fair on May 27.