Liberian National Science Fair

At the end of this past May, I took 2 teams of 2 students to Kakata for the first post-war National Science Fair competition.  From the jr. high division, I had Dennis and Matilda, both in 9th grade, and for the sr. high division, I took Prince and Jenneh, both in 11th grade.  (My students' ages range from 18-28).  For the jr. high team's experiment, we had 5 water samples with different chemical treatments and asked people to choose 1 that they believed was the most clean source of drinking water, based on sight and smell alone (no tasting!).  For the sr. high team's experiment, we dug soil samples from 4 locations (the creek, the football field, a farm, and a dump site and then planted country beans in each sample.  We hypothesized that the beans would grow the fastest and largest in the farm soil (the healthiest / least polluted sample).

Prior to the competition weekend, students worked with me for a couple months to prepare.  This was the first time any of them ever had to follow the scientific process.  They did individual and partner research from readings I assigned them and later, under my guidance, came up with the steps for their experiment.  They got to see firsthand the meticulous work a good data collector and recorder needs to do and kept all information in a research journal.  They even got their first exposure to using computers while typing the content into the slides for their PowerPoint presentations.  While they haven't mastered the skills yet, they still surprised me by how quickly they picked up the basics.

During competition weekend, we all worked together to prepare both a poster sheet and an oral presentation.  They worked with me to put the components of each presentation in the correct order, and they familiarized themselves with the material so they could explain it to the judges and their peers.  While they struggled to keep things concise and to the point, they did their best for never having done anything like this before in their lives.

During the weekend, they probably worked harder than they ever have had to before.  They worked before breakfast and after dinner to prep for presentations, despite being tired from the activities of a jam-packed day.  They learned from one another by explaining their experiments to participants from other schools.  They made friends with one another and got to just be kids.  Some of these students are older than me, but they're already parents, out on their own, supporting children and other family members.  Most of them have never had a real childhood where they have the opportunity to just play.  While they were here with us at Doe Palace (the PC compound in Kakata), they had the chance to do that.  The 15 participants from 8 schools all took part in an educational activity about malaria called Grassroots Soccer and were also able to have some unrestricted time to play sports and just have fun.  They learned that science can be fun during the science demos that were put on during breaks.  Hearing them laugh as we made fools of ourselves with baking soda, vinegar, and balloons was awesome.  They even got to work in teams to build towers out of plastic straws and masking tape.  The challenge was to construct a tower that could hold the weight of a volleyball and not topple over, and GCS's tower stood strongly and won at the height of 73 cm!

While we didn't win the competition and their presentations were nowhere near perfect, I'm satisfied with my students for how much they improved and grew during the process.  I know they learned many things from this experience, and I also learned a lot about myself in terms of mentoring students throughout the entire experimental process and competition weekend.  Next time (if there ever is a next time), I'll know what to do (and what not to do)!  Overall, I'm thankful for the other PCVs for the work they put into making the competition happen, and I'm proud of my scientists for the work they did and for representing our school well in the first post-war National Science Fair.

Prince, Dennis, Jenneh, & I in Kakata
(Matilda not pictured...she was in Monrovia
to represent Gbarpolu County in the National
Spelling Bee that took place that same weekend.

Competition Day Game Faces

"I <3 SCIENCE" Bracelets

Click here to see all the photos from the 2014 Liberian National Science Fair.