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For almost a quarter-century, an initiative started by Lynch School of Education Professor Emeritus George Ladd has encouraged Massachusetts schoolchildren to combine their scientific education with creative expression. This year, the annual Massachusetts Science Poetry Contest, which is coordinated by Ladd and his research assistants, added a new feature by helping establish a poetry exchange between Massachusetts and Bermuda schools.
Last month, students of the Willard Elementary School in Concord wrote and illustrated poems on scientific themes and shared them with their counterparts at the Purvis Primary School of Warwick, Bermuda, who sent along their own work.
Ladd said the Willard-Purvis collaboration represents an opportunity to broaden the children’s sense of the world even as they cultivate their creative selves and their grasp of scientific concepts.
“I love the idea of kids in different cultures writing on similar topics in similar modes of expression, writing about things in their worlds,” said Ladd, whose connections with the Bermuda Ministry of Education helped to launch the exchange. “On the one hand, the worlds of Concord and Bermuda are different in some respects, but the kids wrote about the stars, the sun, the moon, things in nature they observe — so there is not as much difference, after all.”
Ladd is similarly enthused about the continuing popularity of the poetry contest, which was held this spring for the 24th year. The contest received more than 900 entries from students in grades K-8 representing more than 100 schools; first, second and third prizes and honorable mentions were given in eight categories, including Most Expressive Poem (“Sets a mood or conveys emotion. This type of poem is evocative and displays emotion in a creative way”), Best Long Poem ("A science ballad or poem with five or more verses") and Most Original Poem (“Unique view or presentation of a science topic”).
Some recent winners have included third-grader Kara Culgin’s haiku:
Ocean by the marsh
The marsh fills with water, dark
A storm is coming.
Another winner was a diamante by second-grader David Schofield:
Walrus
Strong, Brown
Fishing, Eating, Digging
Tusks, Whiskers, Flippers, Muzzle
Swimming, Splashing, Diving
Huge, Fat
Fish-eater
Ladd, who notes that poems for the Willard-Purvis exchange were not judged in the contest, said he hopes the schools consider a pen-pal program to deepen their relationship, and provide even more opportunities for students to broaden their perspectives.
“They’re not ‘different’ kids,” he says. “They’re just kids.”
For more on the Massachusetts Science Poetry Contest, see sites.google.com/site/masciencepoetrycontest.