Friday, April 17, 1998 | 6:04 a.m.
Body parts, molecules, planets. BORING.
Learning science may have some students ready for a nap, but from the looks of some of the gizmos and gadgets being pitched to teachers Friday, science suddenly seems fun.
"Kids lose interest so much now," Huy Tran, a biologist with Apopka, Fla.-based Aquatic Ecosystems, Inc., said Friday. "If you don't have something stimulating, then they space out."
More than 15,000 science teachers from around the country are here for the National Science Teachers Association convention, the largest gathering of science professionals in the United States.
Educators have been attending workshops and sampling the latest inventive teaching tools this week.
Aquatic Ecosystems offers "fish farms" for classrooms. Students can monitor the fish inside huge tanks and learn about different species.
"The nature of children has changed," said Susan Gieseke, an assistant principal at Sacred Heart School in St. Louis, Mo. "We've got to meet their needs."
Teachers viewed everything from clay skeletons to neon slinkies to the latest microscopes.
The Magnet Source, based in Castle Rock, Colo., offers colorful magnets students can use to outline the solar system and determine the North Pole from the South Pole.
"I think it's fabulous," said Cheryl Livengood, principal of the Alternative Education Center in Lake Elsinore, Calif. "This is stuff kids can do at home (too)."
Students also showed off their inventions during the convention. Ben Kendall, 13, of State College, Pa., invented a self-feeding soldering iron, making it easier to bind pieces of metal together.
He placed second in the nationwide contest.
Two other teen-agers, 14-year-old Brandy Curry and Jason Lamontagne, 15, invented a child safety belt alarm. It attaches to a toddler's safety belt, and if it accidentally comes undone, a beep alerts parents.
They won first in the team category.
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