Science Congress/Games/End Term Exams

The term is coming to a close. Sometimes its hard for me to believe how long I have been here in Kenya (going on 5 months), but at the same time it feels like the months are flying by. Kenya's school calendar is year round and has three terms, this first term will end on the 2nd of April and then we will have a month of vacation before the second term starts on May 2nd.

I'm sorry to admit that it has been a very long time since I have updated my blog... In my defense I have been keeping very busy! So, here is a rundown of the things I have been involved with since I last updated.

Science Congress

Science Congress is basically the Kenyan equivalent of what we would call a science fair, with a few differences. Students come up with a project which fits the theme of the year and then present their topic or their project at a meeting with other schools, which are then judged by teachers who have been trained to judge. This years theme was Science and Technology for Economic Recovery. Students can compete in any of the following categories: biology, chemistry, physics, math, technology, computers, home science or agriculture. These categories are subdivided into talks and exhibits.

This year Bande presented 8 projects at the regional competition (not bad considering this is the first year we have participate). Some girls gave talks about genetic engineering of crops, others made charcoal from alternative and locally found materials, one group made a plastic plate from discarded plastic and another tested the concentration of vitamin C in fresh fruit versus store bought juice. My role in the projects was advisor, proof reader and practice audience for all of the groups. All of the project were excellent and it was really great working with the students to improve their projects. I was able to see my students really learning and also saw their self confidence and public speaking skills improve. I was also asked to be trained as a judge in the biology category, so I also served as judge on the day of competition. At the regional competition the top 3 projects from each project move on to compete at the next level. 4 of the projects from Bande were in the top 3! This also placed us 4th overall among the 15 schools that competed from our region.

The sub-provincial competition was last week, and we used every minute of free time, or preps, to prepare the students and their projects. Once again I was asked to serve as a judge, which unfortunately meant I did not get to watch my students present, but it was interesting to see how the other schools performed. In the end, the students did an excellent job with their projects, but none of them will be moving on to the provincial level. The girls should all be very proud of themselves, especially since all the students that had projects advance are only in form 2, meaning they have 2 more years to compete, so this was a great first exposure for them!

Games

Games, or sports, was held a few weeks ago. Even though I am not coaching any of the teams that compete this term I was asked to go along to watch the competition. This term the teams competing were: handball, netball and athletics (track and field). All of the schools from our region compete on the same day, so the day runs more like a large tournament. Bande had an excellent day! Our netball and handball teams won all of their games, which means they will advance to the next level of competition which will be held at the beginning of next term. All of the girls who competed in athletics were among the top 3 in their event and will also be moving on to the next level.

End Term Exams

This week Bande is having our end term exams. I co-wrote the exam for my form 2 biology class (with the teacher who teaches the other form 2 class), and then wrote the form 1 biology and chemistry exams. Over the last couple of days I have been playing review games with all of my classes. This has not only (hopefully) helped my students prepare for exams, but it has provided me with endless entertainment! The concept of playing a game show type game is somewhat foreign, and has been an interesting concept to try and teach my students. They have pretty much gotten the hang of it, except for wagering or betting in the final round. It took my at least 10 minutes to try and clarify this idea, and when I thought I had finally gotten the idea across to all the students and asked each group for their final bet they all bet 50 points (the other questions had been between 100-500 points). I found this incredibly funny and had a good laugh. My mom has since commended me on introducing the concept of gambling to my students, but I maintain that its an important math and reasoning skill!

This more or less brings us to what I'm up to right now. I've made the trip into Migori today in order to do some research on scholarships to help some of my students pay their schools fees. A full year of secondary school at Bande (including room, board, uniforms etc.) costs about 25,000 Kenyan shillings, or about $300. The level of poverty in this region of Kenya is staggering, and even this amount of money is a struggle for the majoirty of families in the area. Some students are sponsored by various organizations, relatives or other individuals. A few of my brightest and most promising students have had recent deaths in the family which have taken their fee-paying relatives, or parents. In an attempt to help them stay in school I am trying to network with any and all NGOs and Kenyan non-profits. As I am unfortunately finding there are many many students who need financial assistance and very few resources out there. But, I will continue to work to try to help these students stay in school.