Harding Science Fair

For the second year in a row, I judged this science fair at this school (which has been adopted by the hospital for annual school physicals, done for free by us, since most of the children in this school come from families who do not have the funding or insurance to pay for something as simple as an annual physical, which is required by law) by the name of Harding Middle School(Link). Last year, this school was also selected as the NASA explorer school(Link), and thus has been funded by NASA to develop their science program and to promote science, specifically the engineering and physical sciences in the school.

So they started this Science fair, last year. They have five judges last year: Myself, Ritu, one of my colleagues and two retired teachers. There were 100s of projects ranging from an experiment to be conducted in space (which was selected by NASA to be taken aboard the Space Shuttle), to generating electricity and designing efficient ways to dry fruits. We were there from 6pm to about 9:30-10pm. It was a lot of work, but fun. Some of the students had prepared presentations, some were goofing around and some genuinely were interested to use these projects as a stepping stone to obtain scholarship from NASA and other funding agencies. The turn out of students, their parents and friends was very encouraging.

This time, it was a bit smaller, but more well organized. Instead of one person doing a project, this year they tried to do it in groups of two & above. Plenty of genuine experiment designs from measuring the elasticity/tensile strength of rubber bands to melting point of chocolates to developing methods on lowering the house energy bill. Also they had many more judges: four from our hospital, 10 from a local college, 10 from drake university and 5 from Iowa State University. This time the judging required like one hour to complete, but there were many more aspects to the function: a Audio-Video link with the Stoddard Space Center and AV links to other NASA explorer schools around the country. Through this AV link they provided a very detailed view of the current NASA projects, including but not limited to the shuttle launch which took place today, the return to the moon mission, the MARS explorer missions. There were also experts available to answer questions and students asked questions ranging from: does one age less or more in space, does time slow down in space, where do the feces go on the International space station (ISS), why do they need more toilets and an exercise machine on the ISS (on board the latest space shuttle mission). All of this was not only by equipment donated by NASA, but NASA also set up the equipment.

Of course there was plenty of food, apple cider and not to mention prizes for the top 5 projects.

Unfortunately, this school is one of the poorer schools in the state (thus the adoption by the Hospital and NASA). Many of the students get their major meals and food from the school. So much so, that on Fridays and long weekends, if the school and other agencies do not fill their backpacks or lunch boxes with non-perishables; they will go hungry over the weekend. And thus for some of the families which came to the fair, it was a source of free food. A contrast to the amount of food wasted and just distributed in the hospital conferences and meetings.

Each year, they also select teachers, who get to fly in the NASA zero gravity flight (or the vomit comet), and then they share their experience with the students and motivate them to develop projects to test prevailing theories and to develop new technology. They are also in the midst of designing of moon explorer vehicles, which will participate in the annual moon explorer vehicle race.

All of the above reminded me of the project school of ISRO in the village of Vastrapur in Ahmedabad. I guess we were lucky to get the same kind of exposure. I still remember taking the ISRO bus to SAC to participate in the first satellite link with Trivandrum school children. Not to mention the science fair in the school, the science day celebration in PRL.

Life does revolve in circles.

Of course my pet projects in the science fair: does bacterial growth change in space (on board the space shuttle) and measuring the elasticity of rubber bands :-) Simple but very elegantly designed experiments, asking some very difficult questions!