Parent volunteer Karrie Frey helps Kiahra Burns, 6, ease onto a bed of nails at Thursday’s “Physics Phun Day” at Cummings. Students rotated among 18 different hands-on science experiments, from launching carbon-dioxide-fueled paper rockets to watching spaghetti float on soda bubbles. (Jennifer H. Svan / Stars and Stripes)

MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan — Mallory Lynde decided she liked dissecting creatures in fifth-grade science at Cummings Elementary School, but she couldn’t get over the sour odor.

“It smells like pickles,” she said, while slicing through a 10-inch African earthworm Thursday.

Last week, the class took apart a sheep eyeball.

“It was more hairy than gooey,” said classmate Shawn Calter.

“And it smelled horrible,” Mallory added. Dissection “is fun, but it’s gross,” she said.

Mallory and the other students delighted, however, when they discovered the earthworm’s five hearts. Although the day’s lesson was about the worm’s circulatory system, some students tried to find the liver or figure out what the worm’s last meal was.

It was an exercise in inquiry, said fifth-grade science teacher David Mercen, a key component of new science standards to be introduced at Department of Defense Dependents Schools in the Pacific next school year.

“The kids are exploring, asking questions, trying to find answers on their own,” he said.

In addition to the inquiry process, the new curriculum includes an updated textbook, materials and content standards. Every grade will still cover four basic areas of life, earth and physical science, as well as astronomy, Mercen said.

The formal scientific method isn’t to be replaced, just augmented, he said.

“Real scientists never stop asking questions; they never come to an absolute answer,” he said. “That’s what inquiry is, continuing to ask questions, seeing where that takes you.”

With an eye toward the new standards, Cummings also held its inaugural “Physics Phun Day” on Thursday, organized by literacy facilitator Erica Finlay, who set up a similar fair for many years while a DODDS teacher in Baumholder, Germany.

Students rotated among 18 science experiments, from launching carbon-dioxide-fueled paper rockets to sitting on a bed of nails. At one station, they dipped their hands in mysterious goo — a silky, slippery concoction of water and corn syrup — and at another, made ice cream by vigorously shaking salt, milk, sugar and vanilla in a resealable bag.

Third-grader Crystal Lara said her favorite experiment was the “hovercraft,” a chair on a wooden disc that rode on a cushion of vacuum-cleaner air.

“It really feels like you’re hovering,” she said. “If there was more energy, you’d be flying really high.”

Finlay said the goal was for students to leave “with a love of science and excited about wanting to try different things. It’s just for kids to be exposed to different experiments in science and see that science is fun.”

Mercen’s students are ahead of the curve. After earthworms, next on the dissecting table will be a crayfish, then a grasshopper. Soon the class will watch chicken eggs, warmed in an incubator on a classroom countertop, hatch.

“It helps tie in all the curriculum concepts,” Mercen said. “The real-life stuff — it’s better than reading about it in a book.”

Parent volunteer Karrie Frey helps Kiahra Burns, 6, ease onto a bed of nails at Thursday’s “Physics Phun Day” at Cummings. Students rotated among 18 different hands-on science experiments, from launching carbon-dioxide-fueled paper rockets to watching spaghetti float on soda bubbles. (Jennifer H. Svan / Stars and Stripes)

Zack Minner, left, and Mallory Lynde dissect an earthworm in fifth-grade science Thursday at Cummings Elementary. (Jennifer H. Svan / Stars and Stripes)

Kindergarteners Sean Larsen, Dallas West, and Janae Mosessoto, left to right, each shake a plastic bag of milk, sugar, vanilla and salt to make ice cream during Physics Phun Day at Cummings. (Jennifer H. Svan / Stars and Stripes)

Third-grader Cameron Diaz tries out the "hovercraft." (Jennifer H. Svan / Stars and Stripes)

Shannon Davis, 6, left, and Caitlyn Leeson, 6, dip their hands in a goo of corn syrup and water at the Physics Phun Day on Thursday at Cummings Elementary School, Misawa Air Base, Japan. (Jennifer H. Svan / Stars and Stripes)