Mr. Z, Avon Lake’s Own “Science Guy,” Is A Hit With The Students

From the full head of white hair to the lab coat and the seemingly customized name, “Mr. Z,” DiscoveryWorks manager is the perfect child-friendly, not-so-mad scientist.

He’s a familiar face to any child who has gone through the Avon Lake school system in the past seven years.

Removed from his lab coat and safety goggles, “Mr. Z” is Ed Zovack, a retired science teacher who spent 30 years in the Euclid school system.   

 “He is known to all the kids in town as Mr. Z,” library spokesperson Jill Ralston said. “He’s our very own version of Bill Nye the Science Guy. He is a retired junior high science teacher and a perfect fit for DiscoveryWorks.” 

But give him a beaker, some test tubes and room full of kids, and he transforms into science whiz that knows the right chemical formula to make students say, “Whoa!”

 Zovack is the DiscoveryWorks manager at the Avon Lake Public Library, a position he clearly relishes. No man-made show, he contends, can hold a candle to real, live science.

“No matter how spectacular 3-D or special effects are on TV or in movies, nothing beats doing something yourself or being a few feet away from a live demonstration,” Zovack contends. “Science is all about exploring the world around us and discovering new things, and that's what the children do in our classes.”

At no cost to the school district, approximately 1,800 Avon Lake students from grades K- 5 attend a DiscoveryWorks class twice each year in the library’s front room. Students get to participate in hands-on experiments including “Pushes and Pulls, Trees” (kindergarten); Rocks and Minerals, Solids Liquids and Gases (first grade); Trees, Light and Sound (second grade); Rocks and Minerals, Force and Motion (third grade); Meteorology, Matter & Chemistry (fourth grade); and Eco Systems and Biomes, Sound and Light, Star Lab (fifth grade).

A grant from the Avon Lake City Schools Foundation helps keep the program going.

 In 2011, Mr. Z and Linda Janesz (“Mrs. J)” will lead 165 classes at the library.

 “The only school visit we do is in the spring when I take our Starlab portable planetarium to Troy for their fifth-grade classes,” Zovack said.

 A recent visit by Erieview’s Gwen Smith’s first-grade class, children were an integral part of experiments, shaking test tubes and oohing and ahhing as the content of some test tubes changed colors in their hands or created mini-tornadoes.

 “They like to shake things,” Zovack said. “Shaking is always a big hit. “The kids get excited, whether they’re in kindergarten or fifth grade.”

And no matter how many times Zovack teaches the class, the children’s reaction are the best part of the job.

“Without a doubt, it's seeing how excited the children get about learning science,” Z said. “The ‘oohs,’ and ‘ahs’ we hear for our demonstrations, and from the hands-on activities the kids do, is priceless.”