Random Teaching Moments

I have had a lot of "on the spot" questions from Japanese teachers about various things.  Though they are not supposed to do this, it really can't be helped and sometimes I feel a bit like an idiot when I don't know the answers off the top of my head (like, What does am pm stand for?  What day is Martin Luther King Jr.s birthday? What is the history of Friday the 13th being an unlucky number?).  Luckily this week I was in my element when the teacher asked, Do you know about science fair in the US?

To back up, we are studying October Sky, or the story about some American teenagers who made rockets and later worked for NASA.  In the story (or I guess in real life) the boys go to the National Science Fair.   In Japan they might have such a thing, but it is not something done where I teach at.  In fact, there is very little time spent towards projects/presentations of any kind.  There is a shop/computer club that enters a robot competition, but only about 10 students in the whole school (we have about 400 kids I think) are involved and they are NERDY.

So when asked about science fair I was like, "Why yes, yes I do know science fair.  In fact, you have asked exactly the right person."  This is because not only did I do science fair, but so did my whole school.  And not only that, my parents were science fair teachers.  My mom was actually the teacher whose job it was to introduce the whole science fair idea to kids in 4th grade so that they could go on to do it on their own in Jr high and high school.  In other words, every year in February/March I lived science fair.

For those of you non-Americans (or I guess I could say non-Iowans), science fair where I'm from is not like in the movies.  You don't make a volcano or a model of the solar system.  You start with a question and then find an answer which you then present to a judge/class.  As in, "Does ice melt faster in regular or diet cola?" Or "Which window treatment works the best?"  You do tests/experiments to get your answer.

Where I am from we do science fair from 4th grade up on into high school and while the project is important, the main point is to learn scientific reasoning.  We learn words like, "question, hypothesis, procedure, results, conclusion" and have to work on presenting something scientifically.  It's a way for us to realize that we can discover an answer on our own.

Anyway, in talking about this in class the first thing that came to mind are the year that a girl named Kim in my high school researched "Which feminine douche works the best?" She did this by growing bacteria in petri dishes and then using different douhces to kill the bacteria.

The second thing that came to mind was the kid who "supposedly" did his project on "Which is hotter, microwave popcorn or the devil?"  His hypothesis was "I don't think Mr. Broman will like this project."  I say, "supposedly" because I never saw the project.  I stood next to Kim for judging, though, so I know that she in fact did do a project on douches.

Of course, I didn't tell the Japanese students about this.  I merely told them about my lame projects...
*Will a banana stay freshest in a paper bag, a plastic bag, or a tupperware container?
*Does colored glass heat a room better than regular glass?
*Does bread mold grow faster on white or wheat bread?

I'm a little sad that my kids won't do science fair as it is something that builds character.  As much as we dreaded it and laughed about it in school, it did give us some real world skills.