Anybody who has let me talk for long enough has probably heard me talk about how awesome science fair is. How it consumed my life in high school, how much I loved working on my project, how great Internationals was, how much I learned, and basically anything else you’ll put up with me to hear. So imagine my joy when I found out that I was going to help a Costa Rican school run their own science fair!! And not just a random unconnected one. This science fair was sponsored by Intel and was the preliminary round to eventually go to Internationals, just like I got to do a couple years ago. (Yay Intel!)
Interspersed between my “I love science fair!” spasms, Lizeth and I slowly worked through all of the prep that needed to be done before Friday’s fair. Making signs, going to meetings, filling out paper work, talking to teachers, all sorts of fun stuff. Thursday, the kids all had a half day of school because (obviously) science fair is just that important. Theoretically, this meant that we had an army of teachers at our disposal for decoration, setup, and other prep work. Not all of the teachers stuck around, but enough stayed that it made the workload bearable. We decorated the whole school with all of the “Under the Sea” themed illustrations and banners. I ironed chair covers for the VIP’s and judges. (Sidenote: Ironing was not what I expected to be doing when I said I was coming to Costa Rica to teach English.) More decorations. Then rearranging all of the classrooms in the [not very large] school for the projects the next morning. The coolest part of Thursday’s setup was getting to see all of the teachers and other staff when the kids were gone for more than a 20 minute recess. It was so much fun to watch them interacting and see their non-teacher personalities coming out. Everybody joked around and had a fantastic time and there was even a little Cumbia dancing that went on in the hallways. Several hundred pushpins later, after another 11 hour day at school, we called it quits and went home for the night so we’d be ready for the big day.
Friday morning, bright and early, we were back at the school getting everything set up for the students’ arrival. Parents and students were everywhere carrying everything from carrots to silly putty to blenders and rocks. I had the unfortunate job of going around telling students they were setup in the wrong place and then helping them tear down all of their work and move it four feet in one direction or the other. Not my favorite part of the day. Luckily, after the morning setup was done, it was a pretty laid back day. I got to go around and talk to all of the competitors, help out a teacher with a Father’s Day project that her kids were working on, and help out in the judges room. It was so cool to be watching the other side of the judging process. After 4 years of presenting projects, it was interesting to hear the conversation going on at the other end of things. Excitable nerd that I am, I even got to talk a little bit about my own project from high school.
While the judges tallied up scores all the students who were there gathered for some sort of “arts presentation.” Basically, singing, dancing, and other random entertainment from people who are too old to be in elementary school. Tomas Guardia (the school) has a program called “Open Classroom” for students who are older than thirteen but haven’t finished elementary school yet. These fifteen and sixteen year olds provided the majority of the day’s program (as well as the entertainment for every other gathering and assembly). Friday’s entertainment consisted of the “rockstar” singing along to a couple popular Spanish songs and a group of them performing some [rather impressive] breakdancing. The moderator continued to kill time by putting on different songs and getting them to improv more song and dance while everyone waited for the results. Eventually, the moderator gave up and everyone basically just wandered off until they were called back for the results. When all the scores were finally tallied, we basically had a second assembly and started all over before the winners were finally announced and all the students went home. And as for us, everyone mutually agreed to leave the majority of the decorating mess for Monday and headed out for the weekend
It was so rewarding to see all of these future science fair kids at their beginnings. I loved getting to help with all of the stuff that I loved as a student and passing on that enthusiasm to kids in another country. What a cool opportunity to use my experiences to serve people totally outside of my normal sphere of influence!