Science Fair - Part 1

In 2002, a group of teachers, principals, and other professional educators came together and created the Elephant Thoughts Global Development Initiatives.  As a Canadian registered charity, Elephant Thoughts "promote[s] high standards of education worldwide despite economic or geographic barriers."  They do this in a variety of ways, such as: supporting schools, building schools in the developing world, and sharing resources with NGOs working in the same field.  Today, Elephant Thoughts (ET) works in more than 75 Inuit & First Nations communities across Canada, and in India, Nepal, Tanzania, and Nicaragua.

            

One of the many educational programs that ET brings to First Nations & Inuit communities are Science Workshops.  These can be done as class field trips, after school activities, or science fair.  For the last two weeks of March, ET hosted a science fair for the students of Inuujaq School.  Members of the public were allowed to attend after school hours.  The visit was the last part of a science fair tour of several Nunavut communities.

            

A sponsor covered the transportation costs for the two instructors and their equipment.  The instructors were Stevie and Marni.  To make sure the science fair ran smoothly, a schedule was put together.

           

Stevie welcomes students.

The first workshops I attended were with my English and Social Studies classes on the morning on March 22.  For the first half, the high school English and Math classes went down to the Home Economics room (aka Home Ec) where Stevie gave a presentation on electricity.  The high school Inuktitut language classes were upstairs in the library with Marni.  Stevie welcomed the students and instructed them to set aside any electronic devices so that they wouldn't get fried during the demonstrations.  I made sure to keep a close watch on my digital camera.

            

Stevie began her workshop by talking about Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison.  Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-American inventor & electrical engineer, is known for pioneering the modern alternating current electrical supply system.  Thomas Edison was an American inventor and businessman, mostly known for inventing the light bulb, phonograph, and motion picture camera.  Stevie then moved on to static electricity, something that the teachers & students of Inuujaq School are all too familiar with.  After explaining how it works, she brought out a plasma globe and got several nervous students to touch it with their fingers and later, their noses.  I participated as well.

            

Donathan gets ready for an electrical current to be sent through him to the light bulb.

What followed were demonstrations of running electrical currents through human bodies.  Donathan, a guitar student of mine, was the first to volunteer.  In his right hand he held a fluorescent light bulb and in his left hand he held an electrical apparatus.  Before turning on the apparatus, Stevie stressed to Donathan to not let go, otherwise he would get a near fatal shock.  Slowly turning on the apparatus, the electricity flowed through his body and lit the fluorescent bulb.  Donathan described the sensation as being tickled.  The demonstration was repeated with a line of three students.  Everyone watched in awe as the light bulb again flickered to life.

            

When everyone took their seats, Stevie used the electronic apparatus to test the conductivity of various objects.  Wooden objects and a sheet of paper didn't conduct any sparks but the metal objects did.  What the students found intriguing was when Stevie placed a thin piece of paper on top of a metal plate and showed the electricity from the apparatus travelling through the paper to the plate. 

            

Setting the electrical apparatus aside, Stevie rolled up the small carpet on the floor to reveal a small grid made out of black electrical tape.  The 'Guess the Circuit Path' game called on participants to move from one x to the other in a chosen path.  You can move forward, back, and sideways; not diagonally.  The game is basically trial-and-error because you're guessing with every step you take.

            

Stevie and students examine a laser pack and gun.

The highlight and final activity of the workshop was when Stevie brought out the 8 laser guns and vests.  While she got them programmed for laser tag, several students and I turned the Home Ec room into a play area with obstacles.  Turning the lights off, two teams of four zapped each other with the laser guns for five minutes.  I participated in the first game, giving students a chance to shoot a teacher and not get in trouble for it.  For the second round, I stood off to the side and filmed it with my camera.  Playing laser tag brought back childhood memories of going to Laser Quest with my friends.

            

Marni introduces herself.

Mexican jumping bean.

The science fair continued after morning recess with the high school classes switching places.  Marni's workshop in the library focused on the biology of certain animals, insects, and plants.  Marni started her workshop by showing students Mexican jumping beans, seed pods that are inhabited by the larvae of a small moth.  The larvae eat the inside of the bean and can stay inside for months until it transforms into a moth.  The beans 'jump' when they're in a heated area because the larvae inside are trying to move into a cooler area.  The beans she brought were sitting in the sunlight and sure enough, they periodically moved all on their own.

            

Students dissecting owl pellets.

Marni then turned the students attention to the many different eating habits of animals, particularly the owl.  Since owls are birds, they don't have teeth.  They have to swallow their food whole.  An owl's diet typically consists of insects, mice, rats, and hares.  The owl regurgitates the parts that its body can't digest.  Up until that point, I didn't know that owls had to regurgitate the indigestible parts of their prey; I always thought it came out the back like with seagulls.  Learning that fact made me think whether it was wise for Western cultures to associate the owl with wisdom.  Anyway, I'm just glad the human digestive system doesn't work like that; eating in public or in private wouldn't look pretty.

            

Principal A. Salam and I examining the contents of an owl pellet.
Picture taken by Donathan.

Me looking at a mouse skull.
Picture taken by Marni.

Owls regurgitate what they don't digest into small pellets.  Marni explained that these pellets are often collected and sent to schools to be dissected by biology students.  People who go out and collect these pellets can earn around $2 per pellet.  Naturally, after Marni finished her explanations, she handed everyone blue plastic tweezers, diagrams of rodent bones, and an owl pellet wrapped in tinfoil.  We had to dissect and catalogue the bones we found inside.  Everyone had fun with the dissections; me included.  We all ended up dissecting a second pellet.  I found several skulls & bones belonging to mice and rats.  Marni gave everyone the option to keep what they found by handing out small plastic bags.  I chose to keep all the skulls.  Everything else was thrown in the garbage.

            

The last creature we studied was the honey bee, particularly how it produces beeswax, a natural wax used to build honeycomb cells in the hive.  We also looked at how humans use beeswax for candle making.  We each got a strip of beeswax and a piece of string.  Making a beeswax candle was very easy because all you had to do was wrap the beeswax around the piece of string.  The string serves as the wick to light the candle.  

            

Just before it was time to break for lunch, Marni presented two dinosaur plants that had just been placed into two small bowls of water.  In dry weather, the plants curl into tight balls but slowly open (in about 3 hours) when exposed to moisture.  They were her gifts to the schools.

            

I caught up with Stevie and Marni just as they were leaving for lunch.  I thanked them for their interesting and interactive workshops.       

To be continued . . .