In Appreciation for Science Educators

In the past three weeks, the world has lost two great science educators, both of whom I was fortunate to have had, in seventh and tenth grades. The older I get, the more I come to value the education provided me by Penn-Delco School District, during the 1980s and 1990s.

Mr. George Dargay, my science teacher at Northley Middle School.  

Mr. George Dargay, who taught middle school science in Aston, PA, passed away on January 13, 2015. He looked a little like Kevin Spacey, long before Kevin Spacey had a career. His was the first science classroom I saw that actually held lab equipment: beakers, test tubes, bunsen burners, and smooth, chemical-resistant countertop work spaces. In teaching earth science, Mr. Dargay included principles of physics, astronomy, and ecology. Most memorable for me was our unit on meteorology: I had always been fascinated with the weather, and was excited to about how temperature, barometric pressure, wind, and moisture are ever-combining and swirling together in our atmosphere. Our study culminated in the preparation of our own forecasts, based on data we retrieved using a desktop computer and a modem (and a subscription to Accu-Weather's dial-up service). On national temperature maps produced by a dot-matrix printer, we drew warm and cold front lines, identified the jet stream, and attempted to create our own forecasts. As the unit drew to a close and the fall turned into winter, I was picked (volunteered? can't remember) to not only to come in early before school started and create a forecast, but to read it through the school's public address system. I remember getting to Northley Middle School when it was still dark, to retrieve the day's weather data through a telephone line, and to make my best predictions as to the day's high temperature and cloud cover. For a brief time, during those ever-awkward years of middle school, "this is your meteorologist, Chris Smith" became my tag line. 

Mr. Dargay also facilitated my first science fair: not a competition, but an independent project based on a student's learning and natural affinities. Mine was to a be a talking English-to-metric conversion program, written in Extended Basic for the TI-99/4A. I did write a program that converted inches to centimeters, but was in over my head-- not to mention writing in an already-antique programming language. The final product was overshadowed by the technology necessary to make it happen: some lines of text on a black and white television, a sleek computer with built-in keyboard, and a cassette tape player (for saving and retrieving the program). In the early 1990s, Mr. Dargay knew we were all living on the cusp of-- perhaps living in-- a revolution in technology and information not seen since the Renaissance, and that familiarity with any technology was better than none at all.  

I remember too Mr. Dargay challenged us to write our first substantial research paper, the loose guidelines of which I still make use of today in the classroom. What technology will revolutionize the way you/we/they do business? What products, goods, and services have unintended consequences-- for the environment, and other people? To a crowd of (pre-Internet) seventh graders, the challenge of producing a research paper, with citations, was more than daunting. Mr. Dargay's explained our task in such a way that our work made sense: like the student whose work he touted as having beaten 60 Minutes' expose on the environmental impact of disposable diapers, my 7th grade science research paper tried to assess the validity and market for "Wood and Wood Substitutes"-- more specifically, the outdoor-grade wood-plastic composite decking material that's commonly available today. I think often of how this assignment helped prepare me to think critically and comprehensively about  technological innovation, and how to think strategically about using science to create useful stuff. 

Mr. Al Muller, my physics teacher at Sun Valley High School. 

Mr. Al Muller was a different cat altogether. I had him for 10th grade science, and, like Mr. Dargay, Mr. Muller had more of an interdisciplinary classroom method than may have been documented, or requested, of him. His introductory class was unforgettable: his slow cadence and drawl matched his teaching style, as he told us, "you don't have to do anything." His was a "no hassle" classroom, where students would never be forced to do anything: no homework, labs, tests. All would be voluntary, While we learned more of physics, weights and measures, and basic lab procedures (I remember Mr. Muller threw someone out, for using a lit bunsen burner as a handheld blowtorch), Mr. Muller also had us learn VisiCalc, a basic DOS-based spreadsheet, on refurbished IBM-compatible computers he maintained. Mr. Muller kept his own back room full of spare parts and other salvaged gear; unlike many of his peers, he kept up on the latest developments in digital processing power and storage, claiming to know a single command line that could destroy-- blank out-- any computer monitor. Mr. Muller was comical, witty, even theatrical, and knew how to keep us distractable high school students from falling asleep, or falling away from school altogether. Mr. Muller passed away on January 26, 2015. 

2/10/15 Update: thanks to whomever posted this "pimento," an image of Mr. Muller's last-day handout. 

I am lucky to have had both of these great men as teachers, at such critical times in my education. It's tough to swallow, that they're both gone; it's tougher still that they passed away within two weeks of each other. Both men were graduates of Sun Valley High School; both would teach there for thirty-five years, before retiring. And to both, I am so thankful for the experience they provided me. As a high school friend said in an online condolence book: "It was real. It was fun. It was real fun."  

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For years, I had considered buying a weather station. Not a time/temperature machine, but a quality instrument to keep track of the patterns (and erratic non-patterns) we've been seeing in the weather. My parents got me an indoor/outdoor thermometer for Christmas a few years ago, but I've wanted to have my own real station since I knew such technology existed. Seeing Mr. Dargay's obituary on Facebook, I was inspired. After pouring over reviews of different equipment online, I purchased a second-hand Vantage Vue by Davis Instruments. Installed on the top of a ten-foot metal pole, the station itself seems sturdy enough to handle the brutal New England storms. In the spring of this year, when the ground is no longer frozen, I intend on creating a more permanent mounting solution; for now, the weather station's pole is lashed to a satellite dish's pole, about ten feet in the air and in a clearing (at about 1000 feet elevation, from sea-level). This station will be represented online as "Clarksville" (my 'neighborhood' of Tunbridge/South Royalton), but its official name is The Dargay-Muller Memorial Weather Station.