Westmorelander presents gift to Marysville School’s students and teachers

By Eric Norberg

The Bee, Feb 2, 2010 (1 Reader comment)

Receiving the donations to help revive the Marysville School Lego Physics program are Janet Heckaman, School Secretary, at left, and Diana Christiensen, the Principal’s Secretary, at right. O.E.S., Science Teacher Jane Kenney-Norberg, a 30-year resident of Westmoreland, center, personally purchased and presented $900 in Lego gift certificates to allow teachers to select their own class materials.

Eric Norberg / THE BEE

When Westmoreland teacher Jane Kenney-Norberg was called to Marysville School in Southeast Portland in 1989 to teach a “LEGO Physics” class in the TAG program there, she had no idea what that was. “Aren’t Legos those plastic toys with bumps on them?” she asked. “How can you teach physics with those?”

The school handed her a box of Lego bricks and a book written by Lego Physics teachers in the Midwest, and as she puts it, “I was just one week ahead of the students all year.” By the end of the year she was an enthusiast about this form of science teaching.

When in 1991 Jane moved on to Oregon Episcopal School on the western edge of Portland, where she became the Lower School Science Specialist, her experience with the Marysville School students led her to start an after-school Lego Physics program which over the years has kept expanding — today involving 85 students, 12 teaching assistants, and five paid adults, along with additional adult volunteers.

There are eight classes, in varying levels of experience and difficulty, and the students have dreamed up and built Lego constructions which have appeared in over 50 public Lego displays over the years at OMSI, the Oregon Zoo, and other locations — most recently including the OHSU clinic at S.E. 39th and Division, during the 2009 Division-Clinton Street Fair.

Because of how her Lego Physics program started, Jane was distressed to learn of the fire that destroyed much of Marysville School late in 2009, and she determined to assist the school in restarting its Lego Physics classes in its new quarters at the Rose City Park School on N.E. 57th between Halsey and Sandy.

In the 10 am hour of Friday, December 18th, the last day before Christmas Break, Jane arrived at Rose City Park School with a Christmas present of $900 in Lego gift certificates she had purchased to allow each teacher to select the Legos needed to teach with in his or her classroom — and additional boxes of new and used Legos donated from her O.E.S. program, and from various students and parents involved in the program.

The donations were gratefully received by the office staff of the relocated Marysville School, in this, the last day of school before their Christmas/Holiday break.

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