PENN TWP — Lily Cogley, 10, rubbed wool across a plastic comb, then used it to make two pieces of thread dance like snakes.

Lily and the three other girls and five fourth grade boys in the Penn Christian Academy lab are getting their science education hands-on.

The curriculum developed by Sari Harris, science lab instructor and curriculum coordinator, was recently named a finalist in the Association of Christian School International competition. The school will hear the results of another competition from Carnegie Mellon University in the next few weeks.

The recognition comes a year after the schoolwide program was implemented and more than two years after Harris began developing Discovery Exploration Experimentation Possibilities.

Harris said DEEP sets itself apart from others because the students don't repeat topics in the seven years they are at the school and because of its focus on activities.

Homeroom teachers teach the theory and background lessons to the students three days per week. On the other two days, they walk to the science classroom, where Harris works on activities and experiments with the students.

When fifth grade students arrived at Harris' room Monday morning, they knew the name of the man who created the scientific classification system before they used cut-out fish to create their own dichotomy.

When teachers cover the book material in the classroom, Harris can make the two 40-minute sessions more meaningful.

Christine Dods, school administrator, said the program's objective is to teach the students how to ask intelligent questions. She can see the effects of the program in the way the students answer questions.

Harris said that during a 40-minute class, students learn how to be critical thinkers.

The response to the program from parents and students has been enthusiastic, Harris said.

The fourth grade students, who arrived after the fifth grade class, are conducting experiments with electricity this nine-week term.

When the class met with Harris last, they built electromagnets. On Monday, the nine fit four static electric experiments into the class period.

First, Lily of Butler rubbed her pencil across two stacked sheets of paper vigorously. The class took a moment to learn what vigorously meant first. After a minute of rubbing, static held the sheets together when Lily held the paper in the air.

Next, she charged a comb by rubbing wool over it until she could lead a ping-pong ball around the table with it.

Then she used a silk scarf to rub the bottom of a plastic punch cup until the cereal and glitter inside the cup stuck to the bottom.

The last activity of the day was to make the string dance. After each experiment, Harris told the students to write down their observations.

"What did you see? What did you hear? What did you feel?" she asked.

Lily wrote: "They stuck to the side of the cup."

Lily and her deskmate, Rachel Green, 9, of Butler said they learned about static Monday.

Rachel was particularly amazed when she could turn the plastic cup upside down and the glitter didn't fall onto the desk.

The students spend more than two months on the same subject, but they won't repeat it again while they are at Penn Christian.

"It's fresh," Harris said. She said because each lesson is new, students are more likely to be excited to learn about the topic.

Generally, the activities done in science lab are not graded. Students in kindergarten to third grade are not graded in science. In grades four to six, the science lab activities count for a third of the final science grade, Harris said.

The fifth grade students will classify aliens in their final project for the dichotomy lesson, Harris said. Kindergarten students arranged pictures of the phases of the moon in order when they recently finished a topic.

"I haven't heard one complaint,"Harris said about the program. "Even the kindergartners, who will tell you the straight truth, like it."