After participating in the Science Festival held by the Preuss School on Saturday, March 2, 2024. That lasted for three hours, from 9 AM to 12 PM. Each participating science class had to present something that they learned when they created their science project. The project has to be something that they researched and also created a slideshow for their science project. Their presentation period lasted around twenty to thirty minutes. After their presentation the students are allowed to roam around the festival and view everything exciting. This sightseeing section was fantastic and other people should try to attend next year’s festival.
The Science Festival included the students from the grades sixth, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh grade that presented their science project. If they did not present their project on March 2, 2024 and they will have to present their project on a different day.
The Science Festival was something very beneficial for the students, because they presented what they personally created. The Science Festival tested the students’ trust in their work, their formatting, and their presenting skills.
The project that they had created had a higher significance than the other projects that occur in the science class. Because the project is at higher stakes since it was presented in front of the parents and people that the students did not know. This makes the projects that appear in the science festival one of the best projects that the students in their science class in the year.
The school festival occurred on the weekend was necessary for the science festival to be the best that it could have been, because it allowed the students and family that could come to the festival to stay at the festival for a longer period of time and arrive at home faster than if it was on the weekday. The students that I saw had become tired and less energetic than they were at the beginning of the festival and at their presenting period. But at the same time the students had fun and actually enjoyed moving through the science festival to look at the slideshows.
There were also other groups that presented in the science festival, these groups are the outside organizations that are partnered with the Preuss school. The groups included the science society from UCSD and San Diego Environmental Services.
The class Advanced chemistry, taught by Dr. Jonathan Chittuluru, had the students present the topic of carbohydrate, starch, and digestion. Each group of students presented a starch food from six unique starches. The project was presented through google slides, mainly images. However each class had a different topic that they presented in the Science Festival. The high schools had mainly similar presentations to each other, but the sixth and eighth graders presented many unique and interesting things that I did not see much of a connection between each other.
A few of the middle school examples of the presentations were the temperature affecting birds and a topic explaining an electric circuit. The temperature affecting birds was presented by a single person when I saw their presentation. The presentation had data points about the lower number of birds to explain their point of view that the rising temperature has lowered the amount of birds sighted. He had stated that the data was not enough to state a fact, but enough information for a hypothesis.
The other child presented an electric circuit that caught my attention due to the fact that the placement of the project made it unique. He had stated that he had over a hundred slides of information for his project. His project was something that I heard in the final ending segments of the presentation. In the portion that I heard about he talked about magnetizing magnets and why the electrical generator was needed due to the needing a large amount of electricity.
The most exciting and unique events that I saw in the science festival were a tiny car/go kart, dry ice, polarized lens, magnetism, and some of the middle schoolers presenting their project were better than the high schoolers. This science festival was an amazing experience for me. It was also an excellent science festival. So I think that other students should attend next year’s science festival.