Science Fair

When I saw that our local college was offering a science fair for homeschoolers, I said, "Yes!"  What could be more fun than doing a science fair project?  I love science!!  And my kids do, too.  So I signed up.

What I didn't think about was the amount of work that goes into a science fair project.  In fact, a week or two ago, I shared that we were going to do the science fair to a mother of much older children and she exclaimed, "Oh!  I hated the science fair!  It was awful!" 

What was she thinking?  She's nuts.  This was going to be fun!

Doing the experiment was great fun, but then you have to record results, make a display board, and practice the presentation multiple times.  Most of this only occurred after repeated encouragement that we were almost done.  This all took a whopping amount of time, patience, and perseverance.

I think it took us about 3 weeks to get it all ready.  My kiddo could only handle 20 minute segments at a time.  Good thing we started early!

So, this was the project:  our oldest daughter LOOOOVES and is simply fascinated by tornadoes.  She reads all the books she can get her hands on and we watch every tornado show and YouTube video we can (previewed to make sure there aren't too many bad words.)  One of the funniest things I read on a tornado video was a term the videographer came up with: "tornadoettes," the unexplained phenomenon of expletives spewing forth when a tornado appears.  Okay, so I thought it was funny.  Maybe no one else does.

We built cute little model houses (out of kleenex boxes, skewers, and graham cracker box sides), and the goal was to prove which kind of roof would stay on better during a tornado.  We placed the little houses in front of our box fans and replicated tornado strengths, EF0 - EF5, using the dials on our box fans.  It was pretty fun to watch.

In the end, we ran the experiment 3 times and recorded the data.  Then we added up the results and created a bar graph to explain the results.  This last part, I had a big hand in.  I thought I could make the results easier to understand, and easy for my daughter to explain.  I knew how to make a bar graph on the computer.  Piece of cake!

The science fair was exciting - a lower turnout than usual, but that was okay.  It was perfect for our first time. There were only 2 other kids in her age category (grades 3-6), so not too much pressure, except for being the youngest one in her group.

After talking with the judges (chemistry club students), (I thought she did great, by the way), there was a lot of waiting.  The judges had gone to deliberate who would receive rewards.  My daughter was so excited and nervous while waiting to find out the results, she looked like a mini volcano ready to erupt!

And then it was announced - she had one "Best Display Board" for her age group!  They gave her a huge trophy and she gave us a huge smile.  She was so excited!  "I can't believe I did it!," she exclaimed.  "Mom, this is a shared trophy," she told me, "we did this together!"  Aww...I didn't know I'd get any of the credit.  Not that I needed it, but it was a nice gesture.  Love that girl!

                                                             (Ahhh...sweet success!!)

The funniest part (and slightly disgruntling) was reading the judges' score sheets afterwards.  The only problem they had was how the data was recorded and the bar graph display - they said they couldn't make heads or tails of it.  Ah well...I tried.  I thought it was clear, but clearly, they didn't.  Next time I'll let her do it her own way.  It seems the more I stay out of it, the better she does.  

I'm glad the science fair is over, but it was a good experience for all of us.  We'll go for it again next year.