The narrative and slideshow commentary are by Living Wisdom School science teacher Doug Andrews. See the slideshow below (28 slides).
We’ve visited the Google Science Fair for the last five years. By “we,” I mean the 4th through 8th graders, accompanied by our school principal, Helen, our middle-school teacher Gary McSweeney, 4th grade teacher Craig Kellogg, and an LWS parent and myself.
We love to take the children to the fair because it’s a wonderful opportunity for them to talk with people who are relatively close to their age, and who are doing remarkable things in science.
This year, some of the finalists’ entries were so far advanced that I feared it might intimidate our young students. Some of the contestants were doing university-level math, although they were still in their early teens. So I pointed out that a goodly number of the entries were actually quite low-tech, but no less creative and intelligent.
For example, one young woman from India created a water-purification system from available materials, which happened to be corn cobs. It was a fine example of an experiment that used approachable technology.
Another finalist realized that there was a problem getting vaccines to rural populations. By the time the vaccines arrived where they were needed, they were no longer viable. The main issue was temperature. So he created a hand-drawn or bicycle-drawn cart where the movement of the wheels operates a refrigeration system.
The young girl who won first prize was just sixteen. Her teacher suggested that she do something interesting that was current and that would be a service. She created an inexpensive Ebola test that solved two major problems: the current testing kits are very expensive, at $1,000 per unit, and the contents degrade rapidly without refrigeration. I asked if she had patented it, and she said she was in the process. It’s not as if she had a huge laboratory, but she pulled it off brilliantly.
There’s definitely a fun aspect to the fair. When you visit the Google campus, you’re at one of the most creative places on earth, and the people, by and large, are quite young. Some of them look like they could be in high school, and Google doesn’t care about that, because they are much more interested in creativity and being very good at what you do. So we like to expose the kids to the culture at Google.
We parked several blocks away. Google ferried us to the main campus in “shuttles” that were plush and comfy air-conditioned buses.
Riding the very plush shuttle bus to Google.
Fourth and fifth-grade teacher Craig and school director Helen.
We enter the Google campus. There was a thrill in the air, as if we were stepping through a portal into a world of adventure and discovery.
LWS kids wait to go inside.
Google gave each child a “passport” brochure with pictures of the twenty finalists and descriptions of where they’re from, what their project is about, what motivates them, and their personal history. We asked the students to read about all twenty contestants and choose three that they wanted to talk to.
LWS kids wait to enter the Google Science Fair hall.
Google had video cameras filming everywhere. There were a half-dozen people filming at all times, and the video was live streamed and archived, so our kids were able to watch themselves later in the day.
The music was turned up so loud that it was impossible to hold a conversation. Gary, our middle school teacher, asked them to turn it down, and they did. Here, our group begins to spread out and orient themselves to the exhibits.
Mathew Reid from England got lots of publicity for his idea that anyone can have their own personal satellite. He discovered that adding a personal satellite to a commercial launch would cost about $20,000, so he designed a satellite of the right size that uses Arduino technology (Arduino is about controlling things with smart phones). When I was looking for projects for our school’s science club, I found lots of interesting projects that we can do with phones.
Jasmine is pleased with her autograph.
Elliott Sarrey from France got lots of media attention for designing a robot that he programmed to tend a garden. Elliott was lots of fun – he was energetic and engaging even though he couldn’t speak English. He spoke through an interpreter who did an outstanding job and was gracious and sweet.
There’s a math department in a university somewhere that will say, “We want this young man!” His exhibit was Calculating the 3D Position of an Object From a Single Source. A very difficult and unusual problem! LWS students listen with fourth-grade teacher Craig Kellogg.
This is Hiroki who’s in sixth grade at LWS. This experiment was called Automated Search for Gravitationally Lensed Quasars. Wow!!!
This was Detecting the Environmental Dangers of Nanomaterials. Laura is from Lithuania, and we enjoyed talking with her.
This was one of the sweetest moments of the fair. Arthur and Vinca from Living Wisdom School talk with Zhilin Wang from Taiwan. He was wonderful – he spent about ten minutes with them, sitting on the floor and explaining to these very young children what he did. What a wonderful experience for the children to be able to talk with some of the world’s brightest young scientists. Zhilin was absolutely marvelous with the kids, and I made a point of thanking him for it.
This is the Vaxxwagon that uses wheel power to refrigerate vaccines for delivery to remote villages. It was a very, very, very cool exhibit, and very practical.
Two young scientists took separate approaches to early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, which is a big problem in medical science today.
The woman at the Scientific American booth asked the kids, “What will happen if we put a marshmallow in a vacuum?” She used a vacuum pump to make the marshmallows really big, and then released the vacuum to make them very small and dense. Afterward she handed out the tiny micro-marshmallows for the kids to eat.
The kids relax after the fair.
Google offered a wonderful variety of interesting foods, including exotic fruits such as Lychee.
Craig Kellogg, our fourth grade teacher, ponders the Lychee-fruit experience.
This is a world map that showed where the competitors were from.
Young LWS students compare gifts from the Legos booth.
