NEWPORT BEACH : ‘Ms. Friz’ Jazzes Up Dry Science

Tell second- and third-graders that they’re going to study how water is cleaned or the way the human digestive system works, and watch their eyelids droop.

But deliver the lessons while the students sit in a mock school bus with a cardboard, red-headed driver at the wheel, and watch them turn into budding engineers and biologists.

That’s what Anne Polkingharn, Harbor Day School librarian, did last month when she began teaching science at the school using the Magic School Bus series.

“I wanted a unique teaching situation for these books,” she said. The four-part collection of books includes lessons on outer space, water purification, the human body and geology.

The central character, a teacher with frizzy red hair who incorporates the mysteries of science into her everyday attire, uses an unconventional style to teach her students.

When Ms. Frizzle takes the children on a field trip to study water purification, they are shrunken and locked inside drops of water to understand how water is filtered and cleaned.

The illustrator of the series, Bruce Degen, and writer Joanna Col combine scientific facts with colorful drawings to make the lessons more appealing, Polkingharn said.

“What they did was take a very dull subject like the waterworks--no kid wants to read about that--and made it very interesting,” Polkingharn said. “They are right on target as far as what school life is like. When they go into space and the teacher says, ‘Isn’t it exciting to go into space?’ . . . a kid says, ‘I prefer film strips.’ ”

Polkingharn said the students have responded “fantastically,” asking for more books on such topics as volcanoes. And she has tried to maintain their interest with the mock school bus, which is set up in the school library and houses 25 folding chairs.

A group of parents built the bus last month by attaching a bright yellow cardboard covering to a wooden frame. Ms. Frizzle’s purple dress and the outside of the bus are adorned with various ocean creatures such as crabs, fish and lobsters. Her shoes are shaped like spouting whales.

The front license plate of the bus reads, “Ms. Friz.” To board the bus, students use a book from the series as a ticket.