Science club looks toward active 2015

In the short five years from its inception under the guidance of a handful of volunteers, the Sisters Science Club has become one of those organizations that has a profound impact on lives in Sisters Country, and especially in the schools.

Co-founder Bob Collins notes that the action has shifted from being driven by initiatives of himself and other volunteers.

"The creativity and energy has really shifted to the teachers themselves," Collins said. "They're coming up with the energy and ideas. We challenged them to come up with the ideas and that's where the sparks are coming from."

The most visible place where the community can see the sparks catch and kindle into a blaze is at the Sisters Science Club's Annual Science Fair, set this year for Saturday, February 21. Students, teachers, and adult mentors combine to create numerous interactive displays that entertain and excite as well as educate.

There will be an array of experiments involving electricity, chemistry, biology and engineering. Healthy-living and green-energy programs will have displays from greenhouse gardening to organic vegetables in the schools' Seed-To-Table program. The planetarium will be set up and students, teachers, and astronomy volunteers will be on hand to explain the night sky.

This year, the traditional catapult challenge conducted by Rob Corrigan in the Design, Construct, Compete event has been replaced by an event featuring mousetrap cars. The cars must travel a certain distance, then stop within a circle. Corrigan designed the challenge to test engineering skills of students, though anyone can enter.

Sisters Elementary School will be in the midst of an inventors' convention during the fair, so students will bring their projects for display. They are encouraged to talk with visitors to the fair about their ideas for improving society through invention and innovation.

Middle and high school classes will bring out the things they are working on in their science classes.

Awards will be doled out to winners of the fair's sci/art contest, which combines scientific vision with artistic expression through photography.

The club is also in the midst of a speaker series, with talks focusing on the subject of global warming and climate change.

Last year, Sisters' extreme winter storm in February crushed the greenhouse the club and others had worked hard to create at Sisters Middle School under tons of snow.

The science club and Sisters Kiwanis, with support from businesses and volunteers in the community, is close to ready to replace the structure with a new one.

Collins said the greenhouse will be relocated to Sisters High School to be more accessible for the high-school-based Seed-to-Table program.

"It's kind of an off-the-shelf steel tubing thing with plastic covering over it," Collins said.

The manufacturer will deliver the unit already assembled, but it will be up to Sisters folks to install it.

Collins said that ENERGYneering Solutions, Inc. has expressed interest in doing the installation and the greenhouse could be tied in with the school's biomass boiler, the installation of which the company spearheaded.

"We're going to try as hard as we can to get the kids involved in the installation," Collins said. "At least some of them. That's a great engineering project."

Volunteers are always welcomed by the Sisters Science Club. Collins emphasizes that it's open to anybody with energy and a curious mind. You don't have to be a scientist.

"You don't have to do calculus to volunteer with the science club," Collins said, with a wry smile.

In fact, one of the more attractive aspects of involvement is that volunteering creates learning opportunities as well as teaching opportunities.

Those interested in volunteering are invited to contact co-founder Cal Allen at

[email protected]

For more information on the Sisters Science Club, visit www.sistersscienceclub.org.