Science is fun

One of the fun things I got to do last year was participate in the Peace Corp Volunteer’s conference for secondary school (high school) girls.  This year they did a conference for boys in Singida and I was allowed to participate again.  I don’t really do much at these other than walk around and smile but it is still fun getting to see students participate in science competitions especially since this is the first time for some of them to actually put what they learn on the blackboard to some kind of activity that they actually do.

One of the great things about the Peace Corp Volunteers is that they are easy going, fun loving group but that they also critically analyze their own work and improve on it.  For example, last year’s science day was great and they had a lot fun while learning to put their knowledge to work.  But with everything in this world if you look at it in hindsight you can spot a couple of things to tweak and make it better.  That is exactly what they did.

This year’s competitions featured a learning block before each competition to explain the scientific principals they would be using in the competition.  The competitions included the egg drop again, a bridge building competition (as a member of one of Clemson’s regional champion steel bridge design teams I was especially interested in this one), a science/math relay race, raft rally, and a prediction competition on the density of liquids.

Egg Drop-this one is pretty much the same as last year.  Each team is given a certain amount of time and the same materials as the other teams.  They must build some type of egg carrier that when dropped from predetermined heights will absorb or slow down the impact to a point that a raw egg will not crack.  The materials this year were three straws, balloons, a plastic shopping bag, toilet paper, newspaper, a plastic water bottle.  There were some interesting takes on the problem this year.  Most opted for the balloons to create drag in the air as it is dropped to slow it down.  However this year only one used the plastic bag as a parachute type device.  One group used the straws to create landing legs that would buckle on impact but absorb most of the impact energy while slowing the “cradle” down.  Several actually made it through the top height we had to offer this year.

Some eggs don't survive

Bridge Building-This was new this year and featured a span of 30 centimeters they had to bridge and who ever held the most bags of rocks before collapsing.  This was an especially interesting competition because they threw in a nice twist.  Each team was given 20 science shillings as currency and had to buy their construction materials.  Any money left over at the end would garner bonus points.  The only free material was the ruler, which amazingly none of them used in their construction of the bridge.  We guess they thought it was just for measuring their bridge.  Other materials they could buy were:  a bundle of 10 straws for 1 science shilling, 10 wood skewers for 2 science shillings, 5 rubber bands for 1 science shilling, 2 bundles of toothpicks for 1 science shilling or 1 roll of tape for 3 science shillings.  The first part of the fun was they then tried to haggle the price down or to buy half of an item-you just can’t change culture that quickly.  Unfortunately several of the competitor’s bridges were just long enough for the span but did not have enough anchor on either end to support any weight.  One bridge did hold four bags of rocks in the end.  Almost everyone had money left over and got bonus points.

 

the winning bridge with three bags of rocks

The relay race was set up with three tables in a row, each with a science or math problem to be solved.  This was all based on their lessons in classes.  The first table was a group of materials and two sheets of paper.  One was labeled conductor and one non-conductor.  They had to separate the items into the two categories correctly before being allowed to continue.  The next table was a multiplication table for 1 through 9.  The fun part here was watching three of three team members trying to complete the equations at the same time on only one piece of paper.  The last item was a set of electronic symbols that had to be matched correctly to the name on the paper.  These were things like a switch, voltmeter, capacitor, resistor etc.  Each team was timed. 

Raft Rally-This is the competition to build a boat out of aluminum foil.  The boat that can hold the most weight wins.  This year the competition moved past the number of bolts and we had to find other things to put in the boats.  The winner had 60 bolts, 15 magic markers, eight rolls of painter's tape and a metal lock for the door.

The other competition was a prediction of how different liquids would separate based on their density when mixed together.  After every team turned in their predictions we did the actual experiment and each team was awarded points based on how many they got right.  The liquids were a cooking oil, gasoline, water and honey.  The only ones that were missed were the cooking oil and gasoline since they were so close in density they were difficult to tell apart.  As an example of density two empty water bottles of the same volume were filled-one with toilet paper and one with sand.  Then the students were asked to come up and determine which felt heavier despite having the same amount of volume.

All in all it was once again a lot of fun.  It was matched up with lessons on things like malaria, HIV/AIDS, study habits, decision making, gender roles as well as movie night, game night and a talent show which I got to be a judge for since I did not bring a team to the competition.  One of the side notes here to mention is that boys in most of the world don’t have the same taboo feelings about close contact or dancing together.  In fact it always amazes me the closeness most of them enjoy, where as we from the minority world tend to like our personal space.

I say hats off to the Peace Corp Volunteers for a great conference that I think these boys will remember for the rest of their lives.