Last weekend four Form II girls from my school came with me and another teacher from my school to Mafinga for a girls science competition and conference.
Form II girls from four different schools in the region attended. To qualify to go, the girls had preliminary competitions at their respective schools. At my school the week before the competition, the preliminary competitions were open to any group of four Form II girls. I had about 7 teams sign up from my school. They first were given two sudoku puzzles and a time limit and tried to solve as much of the puzzles as they could.
The next preliminary competition was an egg drop. The groups were given a bag with straws, plastic bags, toilet paper, rubber bands, paper clips and various other items and were to create a device that would save an egg from cracking after being dropped from a certain height.
Girls working on their egg drop device
The devices were then dropped from a height of one meter, 2 meters and 3 meters to find a winner.
Dropping from one meter
I scored the sudokus and combined the scores from that and the egg drop to choose the team which would represent our school in Mafinga. Our team was a group of local village girls, three of whom had never been to Mafinga before.
The students got to meet some other girls interested in science and math at the conference center. Over the course of four days they became friends and by the last night they were having slumber parties and staying up together. The students being able to broaden their world, even just a little, is a valuable side-effect of these conferences.
The competitions started with a biology relay (arranging organisms in trophic levels, separating plant/animal cells...). And even though our school's one biology teacher has to teach biology and chemistry to every form and every stream, he must have done a good job because we won! 200 points!
The second competition was one about math called 24-squares. The students were given sets of four numbers and they had to use operations to make 24. For example if the set says 7, 2, 5, and 5, the students could use multiplication and addition (5+5+7x2) to make 24. Some are more difficult with powers or required brackets. Having taught my Form II girls math last year and at the beginning of this year I was proud when they tied for 2nd place and got another 125 points!
Working on 24-squares!
The next competition was about physics. It's called Jenga Jengo (Build a Building). The students were provided with 25 pieces of paper, 15 straws and two meters of tape. They were not allowed to tape anything to the table and were to build a free standing building which was as tall as possible. From a physics and engineering standpoint, this task helps students understand not only structural concepts, but also resource constraints. Some groups ran out of tape too quickly and had to stop building. Some groups used many layers of paper rather than using just enough to make the building stand. As a real world example, gold and titanium are really useful for a lot of things but there is a reason we don't use them as much as plastic and iron. Taking the role of, future homemakers, many of the groups of girls focused on aesthetic and functional things like windows and doors, rather than the task at hand (height). I'm proud to say that my school's team came in second place with a tall AND beautiful house. 150 points!
Jenga Jengo!
The final product.
The fourth competition was another physics one that we call Raft Rally. The groups were given a set amount of aluminum foil and were to create a boat that would hold as large a load as possible when put in water. They were given 25 minutes to make it and them we tested them one by one in a bucket of water by adding nails one at a time.
My team working on their boat.
Again, they did very well and my school got second place for another 150 points!
The final competition was a relay which included a mix of previous competitions. There were four stations and they were not permitted to move from one to the next until they had completed the first one correctly. It started with a biology activity where they arranged a new set of organisms in their trophic levels.
Biology section of the final relay.
At the second station they were given eight angles (made from paper clips) and they had to put them in their respective category: acute, obtuse, right, or straight. The third station had five math puzzles of which they needed to complete 3 before moving on. The final station required them to make a paper airplane (something they had apparently never done before this conference) that would reach a certain distance.
Students working on their airplane at the final station.
One group finished relatively quickly, but most were held up at the math puzzle. Math is a really tough subject for most students here, probably because of the lack of creativity on the part of the teachers in making teaching aids and connecting the subject to the lives of the students. My school's team was the second to pass the math station and ended up in second place again.
The 150 points my students got from this final competition put them in a tie for first place so we had to do one final competition...
The tie breaker was decided to be one last 24-squares puzzle. Each team chose one girl to represent them and the first to complete the puzzle would be announced the winner. The two students finished within about 5 seconds of each other, but unfortunately the representative from my school finished second.
Nonetheless, I was extremely proud of the group of girls I brought. They are not necessarily considered to be the smartest Form II girls at my school but they represented us well and, most importantly, all of the girls showed themselves that science and math can be fun!
Along with the competition part of the conference, there were also a lot of life-skills sessions. One of my favorites was one that my counterpart and I put on about gender roles. We had the students show us, by moving to 'male' or 'female' signs, which activities they thought were for only men or only women. Like last time with the boys conference, the girls sucked up and told us that everything except birthing children is for both genders. But after the activities I asked them a few questions. They told us that cooking was for both genders, so I asked them who cooked at their homes. Of course the answer was 'mama' and maybe the girl children. So I asked them why. And then I challenged them to think about if it is a good thing that almost exclusively women cook. I asked similar questions about getting higher education, driving a car, and raising children. It's hard to tell with the language barrier but I hope that at least some of them will think about these things differently now. Cooking is not a woman's job, it is a job which anyone can and should do.
Another of my favorite sessions was one about self esteem. This was a session another volunteer and her counterpart put on. During the session the students did an activity where they taped a piece of paper to their backs and wrote good qualities about each other on them. It was towards the end of the conference so even the girls from different schools had good things to say about each other. It also tied in nicely to the science and math portion of the conference, since girls here are often told they aren't capable of studying math and science subjects.
Overall it was a really great conference and I think it helped to encourage all of the girls to continue with science subjects. Now especially, this is important, because at the end of this year, they will decide whether they will be continuing to study chemistry and physics or stop.
My team and counterpart!
Final scoreboard.
Back home.
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