Exploring Science with Jupiter Jen

Dropping an egg to the floor and watching it splatter may not seem like science, but it’s one way Jupiter Jen teaches 6-year-olds about gravity.

Jupiter Jen is a nickname, along with Jenergy and Jenifang, that students have given Jennifer Moorehead. In the tradition of true science, Moorehead possesses an unceasing sense of wonder and amazement. From aerodynamics to kinetics, physics to geology, the 38-year-old mother of three enlightens students through Science Explorers, a Downington, Pa.-based business that offers after-school science clubs and summer camps.

Striving to add sparkle to science, Moorehead sees the world through kids’ eyes, bringing scientific laws to life with sessions such as Animals Nobody Loves, where youngsters study squid and other squirmy creatures by getting slime on their hands.

Moorehead’s methods include helping kids build a miniature roller coaster, cast their own fossils, or create secret notes with Q-tips and lemon juice. But whether it’s an Invention Convention or Rock the World geology club, she makes science fun.

As the owner of Science Explorers, she engages students’ imaginations using an agenda of hands-on activities. Utilizing materials not only from the forests and the oceans, Moorehead has incorporated the area’s farm products into her curriculum, using items such as a pig’s heart, purchased at the local grocery store, to study the circulatory system.

A former marketing major, Moorehead admits she never excelled in science. But now, she says, “Science finally makes sense. I’m learning it along with the students.”

Moorehead’s past jobs included working with carpets and interior design, but in 1998, she found her niche after being hired by a California company offering science assemblies and summer camps across the United States. Moorehead—who calls herself “a frustrated theater major”—thrived on the performance aspect of presenting assemblies. But after months of animating science for hundreds of children, she learned the company was canceling all activities outside of California.

“I couldn’t imagine finding anything like the fun I’d had with these children,” she recalls. “The program was good for the kids, good for the parents, good for the schools, and good for me.”

Moorehead decided to move forward on her own. With the blessing of her previous employer, she contacted six of the science camp teachers who also were interested in continuing, and the group brainstormed sessions of their own. Six weeks later, the first Science Explorers clubs got underway in 18 Pennsylvania schools. Within six months, it had 22 part-time teachers, and, in 1999, was the recipient of the Ben Franklin Transformation Business Services Network Award, presented to a new business in central Pennsylvania. The citation landed Moorehead a $25,000 grant, and Science Explorers now has about 60 instructors and has spread to New Jersey and Delaware.

The backbone of Science Explorers is the after-school clubs, in which, Moorehead says, youngsters “get the opportunity to get their hands gooey, their eyeballs intrigued, and their feet wet as we explore science up close.”

Her goals are to complete a curriculum that will enable students to take six years of after-school sessions, never repeating the same program, as well as to expand class offerings throughout the East Coast.

“We just have to keep focused on the kids and the rest will come,” Moorehead says. Her ultimate hope for Science Explorers is that the programs will change the world, one child at a time. Moreover, she sees herself as “a role model for girls who often don’t like science. It’s important for me as a woman to be sure that girls love science . . . that all kids do.

“That’s why I’m doing this,” says Jupiter Jen, “to make a difference.”

Linda Oatman High is a freelance writer in Narvon, Pa.

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