Module 6: Donald Woods Foundation (Part II: Science Fest)

"Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't." - Bill Nye 

On Tuesday we held the 2^nd Annual Science Fest at the Donald Woods Foundation (DWF) headquarters. We worked with 6 local schools and invited 30 6^th and 7^th graders to join us for a day of science fun. Tuesday morning came and we found out that a few schools were in need of transportation. No problem! We were prepared to shuttle the schools. Neil and I headed out and picked up the school kids and one teacher from each school. Neil had a further distance to travel, so I picked up my school and made it back first.

When I arrived with my group of students I was pleasantly surprised to see our students interacting and playing games with small groups of kids. Knowing that we would need a filler, I dug into my student affairs bag of tricks and thought about a few games for us to play. I could see that there was going to be a communication barrier, so games without words were going to be most successful. For the first game, one person would show off a dance move, then the circle would mimic the move. Everyone in the circle would take a turn, just to give us some good laughs. There were two favorite moves amongst the kids: spinning in a circle, waving their arms, and saying “wooooh!” and a hopscotch-like move.

The day was off to a good start! Kids were having fun and our students were engaging. On to level two of games…The Look-Up Game! Everybody stands in a circle and looks down. The leader counts to 3, and at the count of 3 everybody looks up into the eyes of another person in the group. If you make mutual eye contact, scream, then exit the circle. I was uncertain if the kids understood the directions, but the teachers assured me they did. 1….2…3… Screaming, laughing, only Parks & People students understood the directive to leave the circle. We tried to repeat that this was an elimination game.  1…2…3…Screaming, laughing, only Parks & People students left the circle again. So, we kept playing for a few more rounds. Since the game wasn’t going to come to the traditional ending with just 1-2 people left, we began clapping, “Wahoo! Wasn’t that fun?”

Next up, we tried to separate into small groups and do introductions. This was very difficult for our students because the children seemed hesitant to engage. Did they understand our accents? Were they apprehensive about interacting with us? Were they resentful that we weren’t speaking in Xhosa, a language we don’t know? Was there something else?

When Neil returned, we officially started the Science Fest with the help of a translator. Neil encouraged the students to think like scientists: observe, ask questions, and experiment. Then, our students performed the play for the very last time. Next, we split the students into three groups for rotating activities. Neil, Laekin, and Connor taught about camouflage in the rondavel; Callie, Shakira, and Erica taught about adaptation outside; and Ray, Keonna, Charlene, and Luba taught a bit of geography inside before going through a coloring exercise. Initially, we didn’t have translation in all of the spaces, but we quickly found out that it would be imperative to translate our words. We got everything sorted and carried on with the sessions. I was very proud of our students and how they handled the adversity of a communication barrier. 

Lunch time was next and we took part of the lunch break to play soccer/football with the kids. We had a good time kicking the ball around the circle.Then, we got back together so the students could act out the play. We were impressed by how quickly some students volunteered to act. As always, we enjoyed the acting!

Before closing, each student was given one page from our play book to illustrate. We’ve put books together and made one copy for each student. We’ll be delivering them to the schools later today.

The closing was a real highlight of the day. We were lining the students up for a picture when they started singing and dancing for us. While we couldn’t understand the traditional Xhosa songs, it was fun to see the students in a more comfortable element. Finally, we (kind of) did a balloon drop. To our surprise, the students popped the balloons right away! We thought they might want to keep them, but there were no balloons to keep.

While the day was challenging, it was affirming to hear the praise of the teacher I drove back to her school. She had been teaching in the area for 23 years and said she learned new teaching methods from our students. The reality is, we learned just as much from the 6^th and 7^th graders as they could have learned from us. 

Thank you to Grace & Monica for sharing your photos!