September 12, 2003: Volume 59, Number 1

Remembering Charlie; friends recall 'Johnny Appleseed' of science

Colleagues, former students and other friends gathered Aug. 30 to memorialize the man known to all as "Charlie," whose passion for enriching lives with science spilled off campus and into hundreds of elementary school classrooms throughout the country.

Prof. Charles Scaife died of cancer on Aug. 24 at his Schenectady home. Over the past decade, he reached an estimated 40,000 children through the science workshops he did with his wife, Priscilla.

Scaife, 65, joined the chemistry department in 1972 and retired in 2001. The professor had a reputation for a keen interest in the welfare of his students; he frequently hosted them in his home for dinners, joined them on hiking trips and at least once gave them a lesson in making ice cream. Regardless of the weather, he walked briskly to and from campus – often with his wife – from his home nearly a mile away on Ardsley Road.

In 1986, while visiting classrooms to talk about an experiment he designed for a space shuttle mission, Scaife solidified his conviction that children take to science when they can do it with their own hands and experience a sense of surprise. "The kids realize they are going to have fun," he once said. "But they don't always know they will accidentally learn something along the way."

So in 1994, Scaife used a sabbatical to become what one newspaper called "a latter-day Merlin" with "Johnny Appleseed wanderings." With his wife, a social worker, he hit the road in the family minivan, doing demonstrations in youngsters' science classes by day, holding evening science workshops for parents and children, and sleeping wherever they could get a free bed.

Starting in the Northeast, they later expanded their travels to include the entire country, using additional sabbaticals as well as vacation time. After he retired, the Scaifes had done a number of workshops and were planning more.

In one favorite experiment, someone would hold up a Ziploc bag filled with water, and Prof. Scaife would push a pencil into it from the youngster's side. But no one would get wet, the polymer providing an instant seal.

In another, students would pass a magnet over a fortified breakfast cereal to discover that it did indeed contain iron. "I can't believe I eat that for breakfast," one adult commented.

Scaife would always appear in his trademark white lab coat, adorned with colorful scientific diagrams and nomenclature. 

The Scaifes' school visits had a dual purpose -- to permit children and their parents to experience close up the sense of surprise that is science's essential excitement and to encourage teachers, some of whom have little knowledge of science, to be more adventurous in the classroom.

In the schools they visited, the Scaifes trained a team of volunteers to take over where they left off. Through school visits, teacher workshops, and a web site (http://www.kids.union.edu), they built a corps of volunteers across the country dedicated to improved science teaching.

The couple's exploits also caught the eye of the national media, inspiring a front-page story in The Wall Street Journal, as well as subsequent stories in USA Today, the Christian Science Monitor, and Education Week.

In 1999, Scaife received the Community Service Award from the Hudson Mohawk Consortium of Colleges and Universities. He accepted the award by acknowledging all the students "who wear their enthusiasm right out in front."

Scaife, who specialized in inorganic chemistry, taught a range of courses in inorganic chemistry and designed laboratory experiments for chemistry majors at Union. He published a number of papers in chemistry journals. He was a member of the American Chemical Society, a Danforth Associate, and a member of Sigma Xi, an honorary dedicated to scientific research.

Charles Scaife received a B.A. degree in chemistry from Cornell University in 1959 and a Ph.D. there in inorganic chemistry in 1965. He was a commissioned officer in the Navy from 1959 to 1961 and a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of York, England, in 1967. He taught at Middlebury College before joining Union in 1972.

Scaife was distinguished in his younger years for having collected the most milkweed pods in his native Williamsport, Pa.; the material was used in the manufacture of military flotation devices. An Eagle Scout, he also helped build the 56-mile Loyalsock Trail near his family farm in Pennsylvania. Scaife and his family vacationed there often.

Surviving, in addition to Priscilla, are two daughters, Rebecca Sanders of Lyndon, Vt., (and her husband, James), and Jennifer Craig of Lakeville, Conn., (and her husband, Ken); a sister, Betty Scorese of Pennsylvania; and seven grandchildren. He was predeceased by his sister, Laura.

Memorial contributions may be made to family and youth ministry programs at Our Savior's Lutheran Church, 63 Mountain View Ave., Colonie, N.Y., 12205; to Community Hospice of Schenectady, 1411 Union St., Schenectady, N.Y. 12308; or to City Mission of Schenectady, 425 Hamilton St., Schenectady, N.Y. 12305.

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