A class of second graders assembles in the gym at Park Street Elementary School in Fredericton. The students have been invited to a “Particle Party” and they are the particles. The students must move and dance as sub-atomic particles would at various temperatures. Swings in temperature are cued by changes in the tempo and energy of the music.

The scene playing out is one of 14 science lessons being designed and tested for K-12 students by Grant Williams, a professor in St. Thomas University’s School of Education. Williams calls the lessons “Kinulations” (an amalgam of “kinesthetic” and “simulations”): movement-based learning activities in which students act out scientific phenomena. A lesson for ninth graders involves students pretending to be batteries, wires, switches and light bulbs—part of a mock electric circuit.

“This approach to learning differs from the use of traditional computer-based simulations because it gets students up out of their seats, away from digital screens and has them working physically and cooperatively to build working human models of the scientific systems and phenomena they are learning about,” Williams explains.

Williams’ work, initially proposed as a two-year project, has been funded with a $4,500 research grant from St. Thomas’ Senate Research Committee. He hopes to push his collection of lessons into the K-12 science curriculum across Atlantic Canada. The goal is to boost scientific literacy among students who will make up the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Said Williams: “This study is exploring the role that Kinulations-based lessons may have in equipping the children of the current generation with the insight and creativity that will be required to solve the problems they will inevitably face.”