Art Meets Science in Middle School Lesson and Performance
FMA Live! performed for DMPS middle school students, bring to life lessons about science.
No, that wasn’t a rock star tour bus and semi pulling in to the parking lot at Brody Middle School Wednesday morning before dawn. It was a busload and truckload of physics arriving to take over the school gym for two days. FMA Live!, the award-winning science education multimedia show from Honeywell and NASA, now in its 11th year, came to town to give some 2,000 middle school students a fresh perspective on science and engineering.
FMA Live! is an interactive, traveling hip-hop concert that teaches Newton’s Three Laws of Motion in a manner Sir Isaac could never have imagined. Named after Newton’s Second Law of Motion [Force equals Mass times Acceleration], the show connects science and engineering to modern, everyday life and suggests ways that Newtonian physics can lead to a variety of interesting, competitive careers.
There’s plenty of contemporary music, dance, video and friendly competition woven into the mix and the net result is a fast-paced barrage of sight and sound that beats the heck out of the hackneyed, Rube Goldbergian and probably apocryphal tale of Newton sitting under a tree and getting bonked on the noggin by a fallen apple that flips a switch and lights a bulb in his brain, revealing insights that became the foundation for the study of physics.
Also helping to attract and hold the audiences’ attentions were the participation of classmates and teachers in silly but instructive stunts like spring boarding onto Velcro walls, kicking at gigantic soccer balls, applesauce dumped on dupes and stooge wrestlers outfitted in inflated suits and football helmets.
Brody arranged last summer to be a host site for the Des Moines stop on the popular tour and was joined in the fun by McCombs, Hiatt, Harding and Weeks to provide the audiences for a total of five shows over the course of two days aimed specifically at 8th graders. The show was also presented on Tuesday at Callanan.
“The show coincides perfectly with the DMPS 8th grade science curriculum,” said Brody Instructional Coach Amy Kissell. “It’s a lively, interesting way to present material that kids might not even realize they’re interested in if it’s introduced to them in more traditional ways.”
Though it’s a production designed to promote STEM, FMA Live! is steAm-powered, with the A standing for arts. It’s a bonus that the show represents a perfect demonstration of how the arts and sciences can blend into a potent instructional model for material across a wide curriculum.
Primary cast members Erick Nathan, Sharmaine Tate and John James are the live performers/lecturers and their kinetic paces, along with the shtick of a powder-wigged gent portraying Newton in a companion video, fly in the face of the stereotyped incomprehensible science lesson.
Who knew inertia could be so funny and mesmerizing? A lot of DMPS middle schoolers do now.
