In a science fair, learners present the projects or the experiments they have worked on and compete with other learners. Science fair develops learners’ interest in science and helps increase their knowledge about it. The main purpose of the science fair is to allow learners to find solutions to problems through experiment.
Project Genres
I had a science fair in my school, Lecole, which was held on 10th October. Learners were divided into groups of four. Each group was assigned a topic for their project: plants have feelings, lava lamp, hydraulic lift, crane phantom blade, breeding metal, camera obscura etc. The information about the respective projects was written on posters. The learners started working on their project one month prior to the event. My team had to make a working model of the Solar system for which we used styrofoam, chart papers, styrofoam balls, paints, strings, and a DC motor. We made all the planets and joined them with strings. Everything was going well until the last day when we had to attach the DC motor to make the planets revolve around the Sun.
Experiential Learning
Unfortunately, the motor wasn’t able to do that because the planets were too heavy for a small motor. All of us were worried. However, our teacher helped us calm down. She told us to be honest to the judges and tell them what caused the problem. On the next day, we did what our teacher had told us to do and it worked because the judges understood us. On the day of the event, everything was kept in place before the parents came.
Winning Projects
After a few days, the results were announced. I knew my team will not win and I was sad about it. Later I realized that the other learners must have put in more effort than we did. The winner was “Plants have feelings” and I think they really deserved it. “Camera obscura” won the award of the most interesting project. I think hydraulic lift, hydraulic crane, and phantom blade were fascinating as well but they were not delivering a message, unlike the project that won. In the hydraulic lift, an object was attached in the middle of two long wooden pieces with two injections through a thin pipe. When the injections were pressed, the object in the middle went up. In the hydraulic crane, one end of the wire rope was fixed to the cylinder body. It was rotated around the two sets of the pulley and finally passed around the guide pulley block.
The free end of the wire rope was attached with a hook for suspending the load. The phantom blade was like a catapult. A blade was used to shoot by pulling it back and then releasing. I think the results were fair enough and the parents also liked the projects.
In the end, I promised myself to work harder next time and not leave things until the last minute. This science fair taught me a lot of lessons and left me with many wonderful memories to cherish throughout my life.
Year 7