NSF Reverse Science Fair

One of the Einstein Fellows, Melissa , was asked by her Division to organize a "Reverse" Science Fair.  She partnered with former Einstein Fellow, Antoinette Pena and her 8th grade students.  Instead of the students doing science projects and having scientists come to judge, the Reverse Science Fair had the scientists do the projects and the students were the judges.  It turned out very well.  Every day for a week, the atrium at NSF was set up with tables and scientists demonstrating and talking about the science they work on at NSF and about 25 different students moved from display to display asking questions and engaging in hands on activities.

It was such a good idea.  It gave the NSF scientists an opportunity to share science that they are passionate about, and it gave the students a chance to learn some very interesting science.

Students learning about fossils and what a paleontologist does.

At this booth, students are learning about hot peppers and what makes them hot.  Then they tested to see if water or milk did a better job of cooling the heat after a taste test.

Several of us Einstein Fellows were also asked to do a science project.  I had a booth that showed some ways that computer scientists are making contribution to science in diverse and interesting ways.  I talked about digitizing 20 years of New York Times in less than 3 months using a type of crowd sourcing,  Google's fleet of computer driven cars that have driven 190,000 on California roads, and using super computers to test materials to make smaller, more powerful batteries that can charge faster and last longer. Then the students and I tested making batteries out of potatoes, lemons, limes, and apples.  

I don't know how much the kids learned, but I learned a lot about making a potato battery  

• potatoes generated more electricity than the lemon, lime, or apple, about 1 volt
• a penny works better than a copper wire because of more surface area
• longer wires create more resistance and reduce the current
• the zinc coating on the nail is not very thick
• you can set up more than one potato in series or parallel to increase the voltage and current
• when you add more potatoes you also add more resistance
• the diameter of the wire makes a difference
• if you do this more than one day, get new materials or clean them with steel wool, because of the corrosion buildup on the metal
• it is not as easy as it looks on YouTube