Science Day

An annual tradition here at St Jude is Science Day.  It's quite similar to a science fair you would see in Canada, the exception being that most students didn't start working on their project until the day before at about 3 pm.  However, there were a few projects that showed me just how innovative and amazing these kids can be when they are given the forum for it.

Here were some of my favourites...

These guys made a real airplane out of a water bottle and cut-up pieces of a whiteboard marker box.  The flimsy motor we had was not enough to make it fly, but I loved their gumption!

Christine is a lovely, hard-working girl I have chatted with a few times here.  She mulched up paper to make "charcoal" bricks that could be used by villagers to cook their food.  People around here cut down a lot of rare and precious trees for fire wood, and there is no formal paper recycling here so this could actually help our environment a lot.  I love it!

We had a visit from Bernard, who is a real inventor working for an organization called Global Cycle Solutions.  He invents machines that can be powered by a bicycle.  So far he has invented a maize sheller, cell-phone charger and many others.  Here a student is demonstrating the use of a blender he designed that connects to the back tire of a bike.

This boy is known around the school for his crazy creations.  He made an amazing drum kit out for students to use in the assembly, with the cymbals and high-hat made out of paint can lids.  This is his juice-maker, called "Refresher" (note spelling above) which allows you to chop the fruit into smaller chunks at the top, then scoop them into a blender which he has fashioned himself out of cut pieces of scrap metal.

These girls did a real scientific experiment- comparing the merits of thatch roofs to metal ones.  They build models of the two types of Tanzanian homes in art class, then sat them out in the sun with a glass of water in each one, and measured the temperature. 

These students did research on traditional remedies and then tried making some of their own.

Liston Innocent, our resident scientist.  Every year, he starts the next year's science day project the day after science day.  He taps the teachers and lab technicians on the shoulder all year, asking for some copper wire or an alligator clip and works the night away on his creations.   Last year he created his own cell phone out of parts from a dvd player.  This year he built his own generator that can be fuelled with corn oil.  What a cool kid.

Here's everyone gathered as the head of Science, Mr. Mcharo (blue shirt) prepares to open Science Day.