Visual Education (Jan-Dec 1922)

June, 19 22 287 CHART OF LIME TREE There are 1,200 of these large colored wall charts, devoted principally to geography and nature study, and they are in constant demand. minds vivid and lasting pictures of how and where rubber is secured and how the raw product is elaborated into various commercial forms. Her order goes to the principal, and through him is transmitted to the museum. On Tuesday, without fail, all material requisitioned for the school is delivered by motor truck and checked and receipted for by a teacher or an upper-grade pupil charged with this duty. The shipment is readily unpacked, as only tissue paper is used, for, says Miss Meissner, "we would rather have an occasional bottle break in transportation than put teachers to the annoyance of using excelsior packing." In Miss Allen's collection there Mill be muslin sacks holding specimens of crude rubber in various stages of preparation, together with samples of various commercial products made from rubber, such as bottle stoppers, auto tires, rubberized fabrics, garden hose, rubber toys, heels, boots, combs, etc. There will be a large colored wall chart picturing the rubber tree, with details of leaf, bud, blossom and bark. There will be a set of stereoscopic views illustrating, with the realism peculiar to the three-dimensional stere ograph, the geography, the people, homes, costumes and customs of the far-away lands from which the world gets its rubber supply. As a rule there are from ten to fifteen different views in each collection — sometimes fifteen duplicate copies of a single view — and as each school at the beginning of the year is supplied with fifteen "hand scopes," the pictures may be studied simultaneously by a large group of pupils. There will be a set of lantern slides as well, permitting Miss Allen to picture these tropical and subtropical regions on the classroom screen. A motion-picture film may also be included to visualize, through its double magic of lifelike motion and photographic fidelity, every phase of the industry, from the gathering of the milky sap to the manufacture of rubber products. The museum has a few portable projectors available for the use of such schools as are not yet provided with a motion-picture machine of their own, although 70 per cent of the schools in St. Luuis are now equipped to make use of educational films. In addition, the shipment will probably contain a number of reference books which Miss Allen wants (Continued for personal research, as well as thirty copies of a supplementary reader whose chapters on the rubber industry the children will devour as eagerly as any story-book. Advertising booklets secured from commercial firms engaged in the manufacture or sale of rubber products supply the final link with the child's own world of people and things. Exhibits Meant to Be Handled Two important and delightful things about this museum are, first, that it stands ready to furnish the teacher just what is wanted just when it is needed ; second, that practically none of the material is in such form that it cannot be taken out, handled and compared with other material under discussion. Everything is intended for hard use. "We want pupils to get in close, personal touch with all these things," the curator explains. "When it comes to the study of cotton, for example, we let each child handle the boll and try to pick out the seeds. There is no better way to make children realize just what Whitney's cotton gin did for this important industry. We have these cotton bolls shipped to us in large quantities, and a fresh supply is always put into on page 305) Films Used at "Boston Tech" for Training Health Teachers THE summer course of study in public health and health education offered last summer for the first time by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proved so successful that it was made one of the regular subjects in the Institute's curriculum. It is now found a second time on the summer calendar, July 10 to August 11. In the thirty -hour course in Methods of Teaching Hygiene and Public Health in the Public Schools, which will be given under the direction of Professor C. E. Turner, new methods which have been developed in experimental work by the instructor and other health workers in different parts of the country will be particularly stressed. These methods include teaching with motion pictures, story-telling, scrapbooks, competitions, weight records, etc., with considerable emphasis on the visual aids. The course is planned especially for the benefit of teachers, school nurses who have teaching responsibilities, and teachers of physical education who have charge of classes in hygiene and public health. Motion pictures and lantern slides will also be used as teaching material in a lecture course on Sanitary Science and Public Health, conducted by Professor Turner and Prof. S. C. Prescott.