News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Education and entertainment will be served up together at the Sisters Science Fair set for noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, February 23, at Sisters High School.
The second-annual event is sponsored by the Sisters Science Club.
"This is going to be two to three times bigger than last year," said Science Club co-founder Bob Collins.
The fair will feature a wide range of exhibits designed to entertain as well as educate. Many of those displays will be put on by students - and Collins encourages the community to engage with the students and ask them challenging questions.
"We want the audience to challenge the kids who are putting on their science shows," he said. "I think that's the best way to honor the kids."
OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science & Industry) will put on a "green" exhibit.
The club is sponsoring several contests.
The SciART contest was very popular last year and features drawings, paintings and digital photography. There is a $150 prize for the overall winner and cash prizes for category winners
The Design, Construct, Compete contest, known as the DCC Challenge, will be held in the gymnasium during the science fair from 2:30 to 4 p.m. The competition is a challenge for students and community members to show their skills and design a device to accurately launch a tennis ball on a parabolic path toward a target.
Collins reports that fifth-graders will conduct an egg drop in the commons.
"That'll get a lot of entertainment going," he said.
The fair will provide resources for young people who are so fired up about science that they might want to pursue it as a career.
"In some ways," Collins told The Nugget, "the fair is going to be almost a career day."
Debbie Cole from East Cascades Area Health Education Center (AHEC) located at St. Charles Medical Center will have an informational exhibit at the fair illustrating educational and career pathways in health.
Mark Herbert from Wallace-Group, Inc. (Geo-Technical Engineering) will represent Central Oregon PEO (Professional Engineers of Oregon) with an informational exhibit and brochures about 12 local engineering companies.
"PEO runs a job-shadowing program for high school students, and Sisters has started to participate," Collins noted.
Stephanie Beamer from OSU-Cascades will have an informational exhibit about offerings at OSU and plans for the campus in Central Oregon.
Other science enterprises from the community include: Bend Research; ENERGYneering Solutions, Inc .; and Empirical Audio.
It's all part of an effort to put science front and center in the schools and community, building a sense of wonder, a love of inquiry - and fun.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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