Lessons of exploration and perseverance
Print Edition
THE process of conceptualizing an idea and taking this through to fruition is rewarding and opens up the possibilities for the way that a student will approach future cognitive challenges. That isn’t to say that all the projects will be successful in what they set out to do, as a valuable part of scientific discovery is assessing what didn’t work and learning from that. Albert Einstein was once asked how it was that he was so smart, he replied “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
Completing science projects allows students to persevere through a range of difficulties and learn valuable things about their own character, as well as the concepts they have been exploring. An underrated part of any science fair is also to present your findings to others. This is an important part of any scientist’s armory, as the ability to convey your own personal understanding and your choice of methods is one that is translatable to many other disciplines and is very relevant to succeeding in the “real world.”
At British International School Shanghai, Puxi, we offer a number of projects where students will receive guidance from our experienced staff, but they are still expected to dictate the route of their own learning to better suit their individual needs. Our younger students enjoy completing projects based on the Periodic table and Mendeleev, Planet 375YX2 and the human skeleton, to name but a few.
I always look forward to the Group 4 project presentations by our IB students. This project has produced some outstanding pieces of research over the years, such as the shockingly variable pH of mineral water, to the effect of sound waves on non-Newtonian fluids. Some students have even continued with their projects after leaving the school, looking at the action of bacteriophages as a replacement for antibiotics or on the use of nanoparticles as drug delivery mechanisms.
These ideas have huge possibilities for improving our scientific understanding and have at their core, an idea that a student explored during a school project. As always with project work, students can sometimes be unsure about what the end product will be, but at BISS Puxi we know that whatever the project, it will result in valuable learning experiences.
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