The Science Fair Comes to Town...

May 2^nd was a triple whammy celebration of education in Bhutan. 

1. 'Sherig Century' – a 100 years of western style education. 
2. Teacher's Day - students celebrate teachers and give them cards. 
3. The Birthday of the Third Druk Gyalpo of Bhutan - the King responsible for initiating the big drive forward in modernising Bhutanese education. 

Our school was chosen to be host the celebrations for district. This meant the eminent Dasho Dzongda would be coming, along with the District Education Officer, various assistants and Principles from 9 other schools. This was a big deal. My contribution... to take a dusty, dirty, drab and empty lab and turn it into a science fair. Not an easy feat.  

When I first saw these labs, I recognised not only one of my purposes here, but part of my legacy too. From a dead start, come what may, this science department will be left with functional laboratories, a decent range of resources, a full set of unit tests and schemes of work to boot. Everything is in process, but the Sherig Century gave me the impetus and the opportunity to galvanise the students into sorting out the first laboratory! 9pm nights for a week and two weekends later... here's the result:

The Night Before... Ready to Go

I've lost the 'before' photograph but will take another of the other labs to compare. Boy did we do well! In the end we had too many exhibits and it was a bit cramped, but I couldn't stymie enterprise or momentum. 

The Crowd Gathers!

Students were asked to provide a cover sheet for their exhibits with a catchy title, an attractive image and a question – the aim of the event was to make people think, not to do show and tell; scaffolded conversations are always preferable to lectures for learning. The kids had to provide scientific explanations too, either on the reverse or as a booklet if there was too much. One kid did a booklet, within which every answer to every question from the year 9 magnetism topic (he's year 8) was contained. He kept coming up to me with urgent 'Sir, Sir's to get help with new questions while I was deep in the mire of sorting out who's light bulb belonged to who. We did have a small problem with 'evaporating tools', as one boy put it. I'm still down 3 screwdrivers.

Around the room I scattered questions given to me by students on my request, questions about anything out there in the natural world. Besides the classics that always come out (why is the sky blue?), some of them surprised and were brilliant:

'If light travels in a straight line, 
why does lightening come down in a zig-zag?'

'Why is nature mostly green instead of blue or red?'

'Why is space dark when there are stars to brighten it?'

I've tried to impress upon them that this is where science begins - with these questions. When we seek answers through hypotheses and experiments, we become scientists. Simple as that! Hanging from the rafters were questions that scientists at the forefronts of their fields are still trying to answer.

We had 6 tables: 

Force, Magnetism, Light, Models, The Body and Random Magics. 


Exhibits included lung capacity and reaction time competitions, cable cars, theft detectors on model houses, reappearing coin tricks, the brilliant balancing of fork and spoon on glass trick, soap-powered boats, friction books, secret message writing using onion juice. Once the kids got going, their enthusiasm grew, and with such limited resources, they amazed me with their initiative and their handy skills.

A Few Tables Close Up... (posters visible - exhibits not! Whoops!)

But no matter how many times I told them to write their explanations in rough for me to check, they kept coming up with beautiful works of art riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes. The onion-scribble girls (not the most flattering term) had to redo theirs 4 times! Ayeesh. There was much for me to do because I was intent on making this work well. My autocratic dictator alter ego arose from time to time and I was compelled to take matters into my own hands!

The day finally arrived and all were a-buzz with anticipation. I managed to secure the remote control for the IR demo, coerced sufficient water from the unreliable taps and boiled a last minute egg for the Inertia of Motion girls. The dignitaries arrived and we adjourned to the Hall for ceremonies and speeches. A few hours later we were back in the lab and the Dasho's party were fast approaching. I quietened the children and we spent a moment of mindfulness to reflect on what we'd done. As we gazed around the  room we knew we'd done good, but it didn't do much to quell the nerves as the Dasho came closer...

A Moment of Mindfulness Before it All Began...

I half expected the party to whistle through in a few minutes and was secretly praying that they wouldn't, but The Dasho had been an enthusiastic physics teacher before he took office, and every time I've met him he's been mindful to reward effort with attention. He visited each and every exhibit, engaged with the students and left them all with questions to extend them. And he had a good laugh. We all did, once the nerves abated. Success! Phew! Handshakes and congratulations all around.

The Dasho Entertains

In the next few weeks, each class will take their turn in visiting the exhibition and they'll all get a chance to measure their lung capacity (whilst learning about Archimedes' Principle) or 'Aim for Happiness' with GNH rockets of Love, Peace or Hope (whilst learning about pressure... I couldn't resist).

A small group assisted me in clearing up the room the next day. As I was reaffixing some of the poster holders, I noticed a boy moving around the room with a pen and paper noting things down... he was writing down all the questions that I'd stuck to the desks. 

Job. Done, I thought. (for the time being)

Relaxing With Ugyen as It All Winds Down

Some Thanks... a dedicated entry is on its way, but this couldn't have happened without the kind generosity of Institute of Physics for sending interactive posters (heat operated, glow in the dark and UV) and sets of cartoon cards for various DIY experiments along with other resources, Chepstow School for raising funds in a charity concert that I have used to equip the lab (letters of thanks on the way!) and Better Equipped Educational Supplies Ltd, Nantwich, Cheshire from whom I made the purchase and were kind enough to throw some freebies into the order. Also my Ma and Pa for going out of their way to track down help and for being a postal sorting office, and to my Mum's colleague Nicola for her generosity! I know that STEM are sending more resources, as are the Royal Society for Chemistry. When all the guests have arrived I'll celebrate with a blog party!

Thank you one and all!