science fair!
Last night I volunteered as a Real Scientist at an elementary school science fair in a nearby suburb. The organizer had written to several departments at the U and obtained graduate students, who were motivated by the prospect of official acclaim (see icon). It was incredibly fun, even though at the last minute my year-mate C couldn't make it. Some of the kids were really impressed with us, and it was great fun to ask them the next question implied by their projects.
[This paragraph edited to de-screwify and thus make visible.]
First, we grads found each other at school (by who was carrying posters mostly), including gender disambiguation and discussion thereof, then drove down south. We had dinner at a Panera, which we mostly liked, though we got very silly over their bread-themed "art" plastering all the walls. (We think that fruit next to the parrot was a misshapen orange, but none of us could be sure.) Our fields were a good variety: molecular biology, fisheries, and particle physics. We found the science fair by following everyone else, and eventually I spied our organizer and got us hooked up with our poster boards and tacks. I don't think we really needed our own posters, actually; a few parents were interested, but the kids didn't care.
My poster was near a very fine exhibit of BUGS.
Just about the first thing that happened was that a belligerent-looking little girl came up to me and poked me in the boob. (Okay, it wasn't her idea to put the ribbon there; I was going for kid eye level, and she was going for the ribbon.) "What's that?" she asked suspiciously.
"I'm a REAL SCIENTIST!"
She gave me the beady eye, but I seemed to pass muster. "Will you look at mine?"
"Of course."
So she took me over and I found that she had done a plant project, yay!
I said, "I work on plants too!" but we didn't really get to talk because her dad called her away right then. Luckily there was a comment card system, so I left her a nice paragraph of feedback; she'd looked at whether plants like sunshine, lamplight, or black light best, and I asked if she knew that sunlight was actually a bunch of colors and which ones she thought plants might like best. So fun! Hopefully she read it today and was pleased. I made a habit of asking the next logical question in my feedback on other projects, too. And yes, I signed them all "A Real Scientist" in addition to my name. :) My physicist colleague only thought about it, but I was right there.
After a thorough examination of the available projects, I detected some themes: a lot of projects were about water, usually purifying it in one way or another, like this great filter.
Eggs were also a favorite, maybe because they change state so intriguingly in ordinary life. What else might they get up to?
Making electricity from, or corroding, ordinary objects is always cool.
Marbles were a large element of especially the younger students' projects. As requested by the organizer, I engaged her first-grader in scientific discussion for some "action shots" (taken by her camera, not mine, sorry) and was incredibly impressed with him. He made a closed marble run and determined how large a hill marbles could surmount after an initial drop of varying heights, and even determined their return on potential energy! He went through the whole poster with intense, geeky earnestness, which you know I'm going to love, and he really seemed to understand why he'd gotten the results he did and where that energy went. He even included erroneous measurements, so when I left him feedback I mentioned that we do have to record that stuff even if we feel embarrassed about messing up, as Real Scientists. :)
Some of the projects had really great illustrations.
And some were mechanically interesting, like this spirograph-esque circle maker.
Hovercraft! No eels sighted.
I decided that this was the science fair project I would have liked to do at that age. It's funny, I really can't remember what I might have done for any of my own, but so many people when I say "science fair" come right out with their own projects and sometimes favorite others too. Maybe my parents would remember.
And a few projects had text that begged to be taken out of context.
And, at last, the grad students returned to their natural habitat: at 9pm, every one of us went back to our labs. One of our labs was the particle accelerator, which was considerably more awesome than the others. Also in this photo you can see my determination to convey that one can, as I have now told everyone, do molecular biology while wearing the pinkest dress you've ever seen.
I told the organizer to email me again next year. :)
[This paragraph edited to de-screwify and thus make visible.]
First, we grads found each other at school (by who was carrying posters mostly), including gender disambiguation and discussion thereof, then drove down south. We had dinner at a Panera, which we mostly liked, though we got very silly over their bread-themed "art" plastering all the walls. (We think that fruit next to the parrot was a misshapen orange, but none of us could be sure.) Our fields were a good variety: molecular biology, fisheries, and particle physics. We found the science fair by following everyone else, and eventually I spied our organizer and got us hooked up with our poster boards and tacks. I don't think we really needed our own posters, actually; a few parents were interested, but the kids didn't care.
My poster was near a very fine exhibit of BUGS.
Just about the first thing that happened was that a belligerent-looking little girl came up to me and poked me in the boob. (Okay, it wasn't her idea to put the ribbon there; I was going for kid eye level, and she was going for the ribbon.) "What's that?" she asked suspiciously.
"I'm a REAL SCIENTIST!"
She gave me the beady eye, but I seemed to pass muster. "Will you look at mine?"
"Of course."
So she took me over and I found that she had done a plant project, yay!
I said, "I work on plants too!" but we didn't really get to talk because her dad called her away right then. Luckily there was a comment card system, so I left her a nice paragraph of feedback; she'd looked at whether plants like sunshine, lamplight, or black light best, and I asked if she knew that sunlight was actually a bunch of colors and which ones she thought plants might like best. So fun! Hopefully she read it today and was pleased. I made a habit of asking the next logical question in my feedback on other projects, too. And yes, I signed them all "A Real Scientist" in addition to my name. :) My physicist colleague only thought about it, but I was right there.
After a thorough examination of the available projects, I detected some themes: a lot of projects were about water, usually purifying it in one way or another, like this great filter.
Eggs were also a favorite, maybe because they change state so intriguingly in ordinary life. What else might they get up to?
Making electricity from, or corroding, ordinary objects is always cool.
Marbles were a large element of especially the younger students' projects. As requested by the organizer, I engaged her first-grader in scientific discussion for some "action shots" (taken by her camera, not mine, sorry) and was incredibly impressed with him. He made a closed marble run and determined how large a hill marbles could surmount after an initial drop of varying heights, and even determined their return on potential energy! He went through the whole poster with intense, geeky earnestness, which you know I'm going to love, and he really seemed to understand why he'd gotten the results he did and where that energy went. He even included erroneous measurements, so when I left him feedback I mentioned that we do have to record that stuff even if we feel embarrassed about messing up, as Real Scientists. :)
Some of the projects had really great illustrations.
And some were mechanically interesting, like this spirograph-esque circle maker.
Hovercraft! No eels sighted.
I decided that this was the science fair project I would have liked to do at that age. It's funny, I really can't remember what I might have done for any of my own, but so many people when I say "science fair" come right out with their own projects and sometimes favorite others too. Maybe my parents would remember.
And a few projects had text that begged to be taken out of context.
And, at last, the grad students returned to their natural habitat: at 9pm, every one of us went back to our labs. One of our labs was the particle accelerator, which was considerably more awesome than the others. Also in this photo you can see my determination to convey that one can, as I have now told everyone, do molecular biology while wearing the pinkest dress you've ever seen.
I told the organizer to email me again next year. :)