IN THE CLASSROOM -- Hitting the target

Deirdre Newman

Darts flew through the halls of Newport Harbor High School in Newport

Beach on Friday as part of a chemistry lesson on electrons.

Matt Schutz’s class was trying to figure out where electrons are most

likely to be in an atom by dropping darts onto a target. The randomness

of where the dart falls is similar to the elusiveness of electrons as

they swirl around an atom’s nucleus, Schutz explained.

The lesson is important because once the students figure out how the

electrons line up, they can figure out what chemicals will react with one

another and what will happen, Schutz said.

After dropping the darts and collecting the information on where they

fell, the students had to get data from two other groups, average the

results and then construct a graph to illustrate their findings. Schutz

said obtaining more data to get an average enhances the accuracy of the

results.

Many students said the activity helped them understand a complicated

topic.

“It’s fun because you can figure it out like the scientists did,”

junior Noemi Carrazco said.

And Schutz, a first-year teacher, earned high marks from his students

for his overall teaching skills.

“He’s pretty cool,” junior Yerenis Olvera said. “He’s very associative

with his students. He’s one of the best teachers. You actually understand

chemistry.”

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot education

writer Deirdre Newman visits a campus within the Newport-Mesa Unified

School District and writes about her experience.