Oh good ol' science fair. I'm not sure if this is the case across the country, but in Chicago Public Schools, Science Fair was always a big deal. Choosing the perfect experiment, following the scientific method , making the prettiest science fair board, call me a nerd but I was into all of it! I was pleasantly surprised to see that my the school in my community does a little science fair of their own. Unfortunately they don't really do experiments during which the students can form a hypothesis and finally reach a conclusion. The students were only able to do demonstrations, largely due to the fact that the science teacher informed them the day before the fair that they need to do something. And they only do 1 or 2 demonstrations per class. Basically the "best" students are chosen to do it and the rest of the students have no homework, and a free day at school. So... not the best system. Nonetheless its a start. Next year I hope to work with the science teacher on teaching the students the scientific method and having all the students do a science fair experiment and presentation. The education system here doesn't teach the kids to be curious, to ask questions, to think critically, and to connect the dots and draw conclusions. That is something that I certainly want to introduce. But until then here is this years Science fair!
Many kids did demonstrations on light and on electric currents. As two professors walked around judging all of them they had to present them. The presentations were of course about 2 sentences long. These kids definitely fear public speaking, and having one day to prepare certainly does not help. But they explained what they knew and I was proud of them for representing their class and doing their best on last minutes notice and with a lack of guidance.
The highlight of the science fair was certainly the rocket launching. All the students came out of their classrooms and gathered around. The older boys took on the task of launching the rockets. They grabbed the hand pump and pumped and pumped and pumped and.... nothing? One more try, they pumped and pumped and pumped and..... still nothing. The first boy was tired they switched. Of course the new boy had his game face on and was ready to prove that he was stronger than the first boy. So he pumped and pumped and pumped and nothing. Finally the Maintenance Worker realized that some valve was shut, so he opened it up and they pumped and pumped and pump, and whoooooo the rocket went flying a good 40 feet into the air. Some girls screamed a little as they realized that it may land on their heads and finally everyone clapped. This was repeated about six times and each time the anticipation level and excitement level was just as high as the rocket when it shot into the air.
In the spirit of Natural Science week we also did some community service and did a trash cleanup as part of environmental science. I gathered about 50 students and together we went out into the street and picked up the trash around the school. We were only out picking up trash for about 30 minutes because it was a very hot and sunny day and I didn't want to be responsible for any heat stokes. But in those 30 minutes they filled 9 large trash bags. Impressive. Thumbs up for the good work, but seriously this trash comes from somewhere, and most of it is from their littering. Maybe by picking up the trash they will learn not to throw it on the ground in the first place. Fingers crossed. Most of the kids that helped that day were kids that had classes canceled for the day because the teacher never showed up (substitute teachers don't exist here). This made me think that maybe this is a program that we can start for next year. In order to give the kids something productive to do so that they don't just sit around the school board during those "free" periods" I can take them out for 30 mins to do a street clean up with me. That way the other professors don't have to continually yell at them for wondering around the school aimlessly, the streets are cleaner which means that the community, I and nature are happier. Its a win win!
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