Science Fair (July 24)
The Secondary school of Sussundenga had its Science Fair today at the Joao Paulo Center (I rented a room owned by the Catholic Church). I have been planning and meeting with kids now for over a month so it was relieving that the day had finally came.
I started out meeting with the students every week and then as the big day approached we met twice every week. After the first meeting of constructing a giant timeline I taught the students about the scientific method over several meetings. I really tried hammering it into their brains that the scientific method has an order to it and it starts with a question. Almost all the students started off wanting to do a demonstration of some scientific concept they had learned about in class or read about – making glue for example. But this is not an experiment; it is just a procedure without real science. I encouraged them to think of a question (or use a question from the idea bank) that could be tested. It was difficult for students to think of a question that could be possibly resolved without many resources and using creativity all at the same time. However by the end I was satisfied by what most students had chosen to work on and impressed by others.
As the weeks went by I started to help each student with his/her own project. It was difficult enough to understand the Portuguese, let alone give advice on the science of the project and tips for kids who had no idea what the scientific method is. By the end though I figured out it was a lot easier if they came to me with something written down, that way I could read it at my own pace. My counterpart, Narciso (a Mozambican physics teacher) also helped a lot at meetings, although I have doubts about him running science fair without me after my service ends.
The last week the kids wrote up their reports and mounted them on cardboard for the public to see. I also had put up public notices around town and talked to the director at my school about coming.
The day of the science fair I woke up and was very happy to see that it was sunny outside, since it was raining the day before. I rode to town early to open the center where we were doing science fair so the students could set up their projects (we didn’t have it at the school since it’s kind of far from town and there’s not really a big enough room). I had no idea how many people would show up to watch, or even how many kids would participate since I had also invited another school but hadn’t heard back from them.
Students slowly trickled into the center as well as people who wanted to watch. Two teachers from the other secondary school showed up and told me no one was going to participate from their school. That made things simpler. My counterpart showed up, as well as Bao and Meghann (PCVs from Buzi and Catandica, respectively. I had been a judge at the Catandica science fair the week before and now Meghann was returning the favor. Bao was our photographer.) My counterpart told me that one of the judges, his friend who worked at the hospital, couldn’t make it. This is a textbook example of what can go wrong during an event like this. No problem, Professor Tomas was there, who was more qualified to judge anyway, and more than happy to judge projects. One of the chefes from the Direcção Distrital came, possibly the most important VIP at the fair (the Director of my school never came, gave some excuse later). I thought it was telling when we shook hands and he immediately commented on a movie a teacher was holding, some action flick with a shirtless dude on it. Yes, it is a good film.
I think there were about 10 people in the audience when we decided to start. I was disappointed that more people didn’t show up – many people had told me they would and I thought the color advertisement in the market would really get some attention. As the fair went on though we picked up more people, maybe until about 25 total.
For some reason I still do not understand, it is required that the most important person does the opening for the science fair, even if he or she had nothing to do with the organization of the fair and probably knows nothing about science. So the chefe of the Direcção Distrital started us off. I don’t really know all that he said but there seemed to be a lot of rambling. Next I asked if I could say something, and nervously gave a speech (I suck at public speaking) I had prepared first by writing in English and then translating to Portuguese with the help of Chris, my empregado / helper. I quixotically spoke of the future of Mozambique and the joy that science can give, even to someone who doesn’t have a job in science.
Science fairs in Moz run a little differently than in the states. Students have already completed their projects but they like to re-create the experiment, if possible, for the public. I think it makes things more interesting for the public, too, and having each student present individually allows them to practice their public speaking skills. After the student presents the judges and the public can ask questions, but I am going to change this to only judges next year. I got really tired of wasting time having students answer ridiculously pedantic questions like what is the chemical formula of X, etc. The kids don’t really have that many resources anyway, and I was more interested in the design of the experiment – why they did what they did.
First place was given to a 10th grader who did a project on generating energy from different metals in lemons. He showed that by using many lemons he could power a calculator. I was a little disappointed that he wasn’t more creative (essentially read the project description from wiki) but his presentation was good and research was thorough. He had come to me a lot for help, which I don’t feel guilty about because I helped everyone who came to me.
Chris, my friend / helper was also a winner. He had distilled dirty water which was cool, but what I found most impressive was that he proved it was pure by showing that the water was clearer, didn’t have a salty taste, and didn’t conduct electricity (the last one is admittedly my idea). His presentation was thorough and crowd-pleasing but I was disappointed when he didn’t answer my question correctly about why he used a light to show that the water was pure. I think he knew but students here are very unused to getting open-ended questions.
I don’t really know what else to say. I hope the kids got something useful out of it. The provincial-level science fair will take place in Chimoio on August 28.
