Science on the move

EOLA, Duchesne County — "It's a turnip."

"No, it's a radish."

"I smelled it, and it smells like a garden."

The identification debate goes on here at Neola Elementary. The children are sure the lump on the desk in front of them is not an onion. Not a potato. What is that aroma? Does it smell like anything they've ever smelled before?

Finally, with generous hints from a visiting botanist, one of Mary Jane Page's fourth-graders comes up with the right answer: This is a beet.

But now, another challenge, as the visiting botanist, Michael Windham, asks the class, "What part of the plant is a beet?"

They've already cut it open and learned it has no seeds. So it is not a fruit. It doesn't really look like a leaf, either. Or a flower. Windham shows them a beet with its leaves still attached, and they quickly decide it is a root.

In some ways, this is a typical day in the life of a scientist, whether that scientist is a fourth-grader or a grown-up with several graduate degrees. Any time you are involved in the natural world and asking questions, you are being a scientist, Lorie Millward tells the students.

Millward, head of the Utah Museum of Natural History's outreach program, came to Neola along with Windham and two other museum employees. A UMNH Museum on the Move van travels the state every year, bringing science classes to schools too far away for students to be easily transported to the museum itself.

The van usually carries pieces from the state's collections when it travels. It might carry rocks or fossils or insects or mammals, depending on what class will be taught. This day at Page's request, the van has brought a botany lesson.

Windham, the curator of the state's botany collection, is the teacher. Millward and another outreach educator, Anne Franckum, and museum spokeswoman Patti Carpenter have come along to help.

All of the state curators have developed a class, or a series of classes, having to do with their specialty. Whether he is teaching fourth-graders or college freshmen, Windham likes to use the same principles to introduce botany. He wants students to: Touch. Taste. Chop. Guess (or identify). The approach works with all ages, Windham says. If they get to eat, he says, they like learning.

In Neola, none of the students seems familiar with beets. They seem surprised when Windham tells them, "Beets are one of the plants we use the most." He asks: "What do we get out of beets that everyone eats every day?"

The kids don't know. "Sugar," he tells them. He explains photosynthesis.

Sugar! Now the students are eager to eat a piece of the dark red vegetable. When they taste it, their faces register their disappointment.