(no subject)
The science fair was AWESOME. Boston Rennaissance Charter School is a remarkable entity -- 13 floors of kids of every possible background - economic, racial, ethnic, educational, and religious diversity abounding. Wowzas. It made me pretty sad to see how little money the school and therefore the teachers are working with..... grrrrrrrrrrrr, anyway.
I judged 8 projects, the creators of which ran a wide gamut of, um, ability. I thought the best one was that of a girl who measured subject's pulse rates as they listened to samples of music from different genres. Her project had an extra twist -- she explored the difference that a generation gap presented. In addition to her 3 middle school-aged subjects, she had 3 adult subjects. Her analysis was a little screwy... or at least a little too based in the vernacular. She was mostly articulate about her conclusion but used words like "wack" and "rockin' out."
ALL of the kids were eager to talk about their projects and every one of them stood up a little bit straighter each time they were able to answer a question. They were also very interested in asking ME questions about their projects - why things worked and didn't work, etc. One kid made a thermometer out of a jar, a straw, some water, and some alcohol, but he had NO idea why the water/alcohol mixture rose up the straw in response to heat. We worked that out and I heard him explaining it to the next judge that came by. ;) The kids were also excited to talk about the broader implications of their work. The girl with the music/pulse rate project was psyched to hear that there was a field called "music therapy." And even though the kid with the solar car (lots of help from parents, clearly) couldn't pronounce half the words on his tri-fold board, he wanted to tell me in his words all about how solar power could revolutionize energy production in this country.
So, a very fun 1.5 hours. Sigh. I am thiiiiiiiis close to wanting to teach!!!
I judged 8 projects, the creators of which ran a wide gamut of, um, ability. I thought the best one was that of a girl who measured subject's pulse rates as they listened to samples of music from different genres. Her project had an extra twist -- she explored the difference that a generation gap presented. In addition to her 3 middle school-aged subjects, she had 3 adult subjects. Her analysis was a little screwy... or at least a little too based in the vernacular. She was mostly articulate about her conclusion but used words like "wack" and "rockin' out."
ALL of the kids were eager to talk about their projects and every one of them stood up a little bit straighter each time they were able to answer a question. They were also very interested in asking ME questions about their projects - why things worked and didn't work, etc. One kid made a thermometer out of a jar, a straw, some water, and some alcohol, but he had NO idea why the water/alcohol mixture rose up the straw in response to heat. We worked that out and I heard him explaining it to the next judge that came by. ;) The kids were also excited to talk about the broader implications of their work. The girl with the music/pulse rate project was psyched to hear that there was a field called "music therapy." And even though the kid with the solar car (lots of help from parents, clearly) couldn't pronounce half the words on his tri-fold board, he wanted to tell me in his words all about how solar power could revolutionize energy production in this country.
So, a very fun 1.5 hours. Sigh. I am thiiiiiiiis close to wanting to teach!!!