Not Your Average Science Fair

Chestnut Hill Local
May 26, 2005

For the last two weeks, The Springside School in Chestnut Hill has been celebrating Science and Technology Weeks with speakers, demonstrations, competitions and other events highlighting science, technology and environmental learning.

This was no ordinary school science fair. There were no potato-powered batteries. No paper-mache solar systems. No poster-board displays.

And no boys. Springside is an independent, pre-kindergarten through grade 12, school for girls. And educating girls in science and technology is one of the school’s top priorities.

“This is the whole point of what we’re doing at Springside,” explains Scott Stein, Head of the school’s science department. “If we’re not turning more girls onto science, we’re not doing our job. Where else do they have these opportunities? [At Springside] every girl is a scientist every day.”

Science is integrated into the curriculum from Pre-K to Grade 12. And the learning is hands-on. The girls are not only taught about science, but they’re encouraged to think and act like scientists.

“Tinkering, designing, testing hypotheses. Looking at the way things happen in the real world. That’s real science, hands-on science, not glorified scientific demonstrations,” says Stein.

Technology also permeates the learning environment at Springside. The school has moved beyond learning about technology – traditional computer classes – to learning through technology, explains Donna DeGennaro, Director of Teaching and Learning through Technology. Teachers in every grade and every subject weave technology into their curriculum to support and enhance learning.

In one of the many events of Science and Technology Weeks, 6th graders presented their WISE (Web-based Inquiry Science Environment) research projects: “Global Warming – Who’s to Blame?” WISE, a UC Berkeley designed computer interface, engages students in research about current controversies in science. At the end of their research, the girls reviewed their information, constructed arguments, and designed debates to support their positions, all within the WISE environment. Later this spring, the Springside girls will engage in a trans-global debate with students from China who researched the same issue.

At the Technology Leaders Lunch, another Science and Technology Weeks event, Upper School girls from the Technology Leaders Program met with students from LaSalle College High School’s Lab Manager Program to share their experiences as student teachers and mentors. Through the Technology Leaders Program, technologically fluent students help fill the demand for tech support throughout Springside, both by assisting the professional tech team in answering tech-related requests and by working directly with teachers, one-on-one or in small groups. The technology leaders also assist other students with technology-related issues.

“It’s just been fabulous to watch the community-building right in front of my eyes,” says DeGennaro. “The kids are really taking a lead. They have felt empowered to teach each other. They’re learning to be open to learning from others - regardless of age. These girls are learning that everyone around them is a resource, everyone. No one holds all the knowledge – we are all learning together.”

Science and Technology Weeks, which was underwritten by Springside’s “Physics for Every Girl” grant from the E. E. Ford Foundation, ended on a high-flying note with Phyzyxfest – Just Fly It: The Great Balsa Wood Glider Challenge.

“Phyzyxfest is finally here!” shouted Stein to applause and cheers from the crowd of 200 girls, 7th through 10th graders. “And there’s gonna be prizes!”

After briefly explaining the challenge – using Gliders by Design engineering software, each team was to design, build and fly a balsa wood glider – Stein dispatched the fifty four-girl teams (each team had one student from each of the four grades). “See you on the launch pad!” he called.

In the science labs around the school, the hubbub of shouted comments – about sports, clothes, friends and boys – gave way to whispered consultations as the girls booted up their laptops.

After they received their computer disk, Courtney Caputo (7th grade), Liz Bondelid (8th grade), Tija Bross (9th grade) and Kalie Birnbaum (10th grade) – otherwise known as Team 6 – set to work. With Birnbaum at the computer, they tested variable after variable, scribbling down numbers as the program prompted “needs work” or “getting better” after each simulated test flight. The girls discussed modifications, worked through design flaws, and were finally ready to build.

After a few production glitches and a break for lunch, Team 6 completed construction of their glider and took it to the launch site for testing. Unlike some of the others, Team 6 left their glider unpainted for its test flights. A wise decision, it turned out, since the plane had to be repaired several times and then rebuilt from scratch.

“The launch pad is ready for you!” Stein shouted over the blare of rock music from a boom-box. At the launch site – marked out with yellow caution tape on the hill outside the school’s entrance at Willow Grove Avenue and Cherokee Street – girls hurled their gliders into the air. Many were decorated with stripes, American flags, flames, dots and the Springside Lion’s logo, and they sported names like Beast, Die Hard and Glam. The girls shrieked and moaned as planes flew off course, into walls and trees.

“That’s good disaster footage,” joked Stein as one glider crash-landed into a retaining wall.

Team 6’s test flights did not go well.

“We were doing okay, but then we made a change he suggested,” said Bross, glaring in mock-anger at Stein. “We crashed, and the fuselage cracked, and we had to repair it.” Several more test flights led to more modifications – widening the body and then trimming it again, adjusting the ballast, shaping the nose. Then, right before the start of the competition, a crash landing caused damage so severe that Team 6’s plane had to be rebuilt from scratch. They worked frantically, with Bross on one end and Birnbaum on the other.

“We were making random changes to see what would happen,” said Bross. “And then we just had to rebuild it without measurements.”

At the end of Phyzyxfest, gliders were judged on flight (distance traveled multiplied by time aloft) and accuracy (landing distance to a bulls-eye in the center of the launch site).

As the wind kicked up on the hill, Bross launched Team 6’s rebuilt plane. The glider loop-de-looped and came to rest a short distance down the hill. The effort left Team 6 well out of medal contention. A second flight, launched by Birnbaum, didn’t turn out much better.

“We’re doing so much worse than our test fights,” complained Bross. “I would like to win. To take home the first place medal,” she confessed. She and Birnbaum debated a third flight and decided against it. Team 6 was too far out of the running.

Team 31, with Whitney Levitt (7th grade), Lauren Morgan (8th grade), Arjona Papaj (9th grade) and Eliza Morse (10th grade), claimed the first prize medals in both the flight and accuracy competitions.

Bross admitted Phyzyxfest was “cool” anyway, even if her team didn’t win. Birnbaum, a veteran of several local and regional science fairs, agreed. “It was really, really fun,” she said. And definitely not an ordinary science fair.