It’s off to the regional science fair for Augustus. His birding project garnered him the Teachers’ Choice Award at the WIS Science and Maths Fair (yes, they put an ‘s’ on math) and he’ll be representing WIS there (year 8) in July. He tested what food types would attract the greatest number of bird species. The birds here are so exotic, that the whole family really got involved with identifying the various specimens and photographing them. We got to the point where we started calling the birds our customers. We’ve now got what seems to be a whole flock of Laughing Doves frequenting our feeder on a daily basis. Some of the birds were so strange to us with vivid colors, long tails or often bizarre calls. Of course WIS being on the American academic year will be out of session at that time, but Namibian students will be in full swing as their year runs from January to November. So, we hope that our travels won’t interfere with Augustus attending the competition.
There seems to be a greater emphasis on science at WIS than we experienced at home in Louisiana or at least in our little parish. Emma’s class held a mini-science fair earlier this year where the kids completed experiments for which they created backdrops/posters and subsequently invited other classes and parents to view them. Emma elected to do the Coke and Mentos geyser. No one here, remarkably, had ever heard of it, so of course, it was a big hit. The class and visitors went out into the court yard so as not to spray everything with the Coke. All the kids and parents oohed and ahhed and Emma performed like in a circus act, even taking a bow at the end. I hardly recognized my own daughter.
Annie’s class too is taking its turn at science experiments. They are working with the forces of “push” and “pull”. They will complete an experiment at home, record their results, present it to the class and also to parents. The parents, it is assumed, will be guiding them quite heavily through the process, but it still introduces the little ones to the scientific method and Reid and I are quite appreciative of that.
There seems to be a greater emphasis on science at WIS than we experienced at home in Louisiana or at least in our little parish. Emma’s class held a mini-science fair earlier this year where the kids completed experiments for which they created backdrops/posters and subsequently invited other classes and parents to view them. Emma elected to do the Coke and Mentos geyser. No one here, remarkably, had ever heard of it, so of course, it was a big hit. The class and visitors went out into the court yard so as not to spray everything with the Coke. All the kids and parents oohed and ahhed and Emma performed like in a circus act, even taking a bow at the end. I hardly recognized my own daughter.
Annie’s class too is taking its turn at science experiments. They are working with the forces of “push” and “pull”. They will complete an experiment at home, record their results, present it to the class and also to parents. The parents, it is assumed, will be guiding them quite heavily through the process, but it still introduces the little ones to the scientific method and Reid and I are quite appreciative of that.
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