Science + Fair = FUN!

It's official, there's a new Math formula in Sanikiluaq, and it is Science + Fair = FUN! The Science Fair was held on Friday and was a huge success. It took literally hundreds of hours to plan and set up, but worth every minute! The kids had a fantastic time touching, discovering, playing, and learning about science.

The students in grade 7 and high school made huge banners that wrapped around the walls of the gym. My grade 7's, a grade 6 and a couple of high school students helped to hang them up.

We loaded tables and boxes of supplies into the gym during the day Thursday, which was an in-service day for the teachers. Most of them went on the land fishing, which gave Kathy, the student volunteers and me time to set up.

During the week, I had made up some display signs for the tables. I think they were lost on the students, but I cracked myself up! :-D The round bubbles and one little square guy, muttering "What the heck?" Hee hee! We DID make square bubbles, of course!

And of course, I tried to explain some basic science principles with the aid of visual presentations. The two similar magnets have angry scowls while the opposite poles are running happily toward each other to demonstrate that opposite poles attract, similar poles repel.

Yep, gotta love those signs, LOL! Poor little density blob...

I had a "Bed of Nails" that we used to demonstrate spreading pressure over a larger area results in lower pressure, and would not pop the balloon. So I had to draw a balloon sucking in his belly to avoid the nail, and of course, cracked myself up again! My sister will understand...hee hee!

While I got the science stuff ready, Kathy looked after the kitchen to feed our small army of volunteers. It was fun to sit and relax with them in the hall while we ate. And surprisingly enough, I was able to get off the floor on the first try, LOL!

Despite accidentally sleeping through my alarm on Friday morning, and getting to school with less time than I had wanted to get ready, we were set to go at 8:30 am.

I donned my lab coat, again decorated with help from my students, and we were off!

Discovering magnets, and making a colour-changing solution in our magnetic stirrer.

Demonstrating the Air Zooka, and knocking over a stack of cups with a blast of air.

Despite poor Meena hiding her ears, the balloon never popped on the bed of nails.

The surprise over a cup of instant "snow".

We had a huge bubble pool and "wrapped" kids in bubbles. Along with making square bubbles, of course!

The table where the kids made "slime" was very popular.

I was careful to warn the kids NOT to try the sound experiments at 5:00 am! LOL!

Everything on the sound table made noise. Lots of noise. And it was a wild and hairy time with all of the kids swinging the sound hoses all at the same time! But that was the whole point of the fair! Is it the fun of science or the science of fun? The jury is still out...

...but either way, it was still worth the work!

At the friction table, we had a Jello race. One set of cubes were just as they came out of the pan. The other set was slathered in oil. Which ones were easier to grab and put into the bowl? Paper towel handy for oily fingers, of course!

The wind bags were fun...the kids were shown how to hold them about 10" from their face and blow. Bernoulli's Principle in action, the lower air pressure around the opening pulled in room air. The adults all put the bags to their mouth to blow, but the kids could inflate the 8' wind bag in one breath, winning the race each time. They loved it.

And of course, we had some projects on display.

At 4:00, all was shut down and the clean up began. It was an incredible amount of work, and again without my army of student volunteers, I would have spent the entire night in the school. As it was, we ate dinner at 5:30 and sent the tired helpers home with smiles and full stomachs. I mopped the floor at 6:00 and was done by 7:00 pm. Home to a hot bath that felt like the epitome of luxury!

It was a wonderful day. We got many compliments, and I am soooooo proud of my students who helped out! They are fantastic! Yay for them!

That's all for now, I am spending Sunday trying to organize the chaos in the Science room, where all the boxes of supplies went as we cleaned. Oi vey! Only three more years of Science Fairs to go, LOL!

TTFN!