Our First Science Fair
Tuesday, March 03, 2020
When you hear the words science fair, what do you think of? A paper mache volcano? Or a scene from an 80’s movie? Or perhaps your own science fair from your school days?
Now, erase all of your preconceived notions and pretend that you, just like our Kopila Valley students, had never heard of or participated in a science fair before. What an exciting journey ahead!
Two months ago our six and nine class students began preparing for Kopila Valley School’s First Annual Science Fair. The projects were divided into two categories: experiment and innovation. The experiment category involved asking a question that the students worked to answer, for example, which liquid conducts the most electricity? Which color absorbs the most light? The projects in the innovation category were tasked with finding a need or problem that they wanted to address and coming up with a way to solve that problem. Some examples of this type of project include a drone to disperse seeds for farming, a solar-powered MP3 speaker, an automatic water pump, and a potato battery!
The students started by exploring different topics, doing research, consulting with their mentors, and generally learning about the scientific method. From there, each group wrote their questions, hypotheses, and variables (independent, dependent, and constant), and gave their materials list to our staff who worked tirelessly to get the kids what they needed. Due to the remote nature of our school, finding certain materials was near impossible, forcing some groups to reassess and find a project that was able to be locally resourced.
As the students began their projects, they worked with various teachers and mentors to guide them along this new process. They dove into their work headfirst, learning how to complete a project through trial and error. Although some results weren’t as expected, our students all showed resilience and perseverance when it came to completing their projects.
One innovation project was to create a personal water bottle that could cool and heat water on the go. The project required a peltier, which is a thermoelectric cooler that gets hot on one side and cold on the other side. The largest obstacle this group faced was how to keep the bottle charged sufficiently while keeping the bottle small enough to carry around. Despite the setbacks, one group member confidently explained the day of the fair, “If we have the proper resources, we could make this bottle very easily.” Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for a self-heating/cooling water bottle on Amazon in the near future!
Finally, on February 26th, our students presented their projects to their classmates, parents, and community with comprehensive display boards that included the scientific concepts their projects used, their procedure, results, conclusion, application to daily life, data, and graphs. In addition to their complete display board, each group was tasked with explaining their project to a group of judges who gave them an overall score based on their presentation skills and knowledge of scientific concepts. Regardless of each student’s understanding of the scientific concepts going into the project, each group left the science fair with an in-depth understanding of their topic.
Some other projects not yet mentioned include:
- How to make homemade soap without harmful chemicals;
- How plants help to prevent soil erosion;
- How to suspend an egg in the middle of a beaker of water;
- Whether a homemade electric car could beat a storebought car in a race;
- How much bacteria is on household things;
- How much food Kopila Valley students waste, who wastes the most, and how to reduce this waste;
- How to make a water fountain out of recycled objects;
- How to make a smoke absorber that removes smoke generated from cooking in Nepali homes;
No volcanoes in sight!
Our students had the opportunity to get out from behind their desks to explore tactical learning, problem-solving, and what it’s like to choose and study a subject they’re passionate about. What an invaluable experience. We can’t wait to see what next year’s science fair holds!