Camp Hain

009 Mastering the Science Fair: Tips and Tools for Classical Conversations Challenge A (Part 1)

• Tia Hain • Season 1 • Episode 9

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Mastering the Science Fair: Tips and Tools for Classical Conversations Challenge A (Part 1)

In this episode of 'Camp Hain,' Tia Hain discusses the integral role of science education in Classical Conversations' Challenge A program, focusing on the Science Fair. Inspired by a Carl Sagan quote, she emphasizes the societal dependency on science and technology. Tia shares her personal experience and insights into Classical Conversations' approach, detailing how her class prepared for their Science Fair held two days prior to recording. She introduces a Science Lab Journal as an essential tool, offering a step-by-step breakdown from week 11 to week 19 on how to prepare, conduct experiments, and present findings. This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for both new and experienced Classical Conversations directors, homeschooling parents, and students involved in Science Fair projects. Part two of this topic, covering the actual event day and further insights, will be released next week.

Science Lab Journal - https://www.facebook.com/groups/563579265166980/posts/1152997956225105/

00:00 Introduction to Science Fair
00:16 Carl Sagan's Influence and Misconceptions
01:01 Classical Conversations and Science Education
01:28 Science Fair in Challenge A
02:33 Episode Structure and Overview
03:35 Welcome to Camp Hain
04:20 Science Fair Preparation
04:52 Science Lab Journal: A Detailed Guide
10:53 Week-by-Week Breakdown
22:57 Science Fair Day and Conclusion

009 Science Fair Part 1

Tia: [00:00:00] Surviving Science Fair. We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. Carl Sagan. While Carl Sagan is almost as famous for being an agnostic as he is for being a scientist I do find this particular quote quite relevant.

 One of the things I found out in my studies is that he is not an atheist. For some reason, I always thought he was an atheist, and I think he's attributed to being an atheist. But when I did a little research on this particular quote, he said he is agnostic. When people would call him atheist, he would correct them saying, no, he is agnostic. He believed that to be an atheist you would have to have definitive proof that there is no God, and he said he did not have that information. 

Anyway, why I think the quote is relevant is [00:01:00] I think it's true. This is one of the many reasons why Classical Conversations has a science strand each and every year, which is more than public schools.

I remember, at least when I was in public school, I only had to take two years of science and that was to go to college. When I was in high school, I only had to take two years of science. I had to take two more years when I got to college, but I didn't have to take it every year. That was even to go to college. I don't remember what you needed just to graduate. 

In Classical Conversations, we start off with Science Fair in Challenge A. There's a science strand through the whole year, but our big thing is Science Fair . It's to give the new Challenge kids, cause remember in Challenge A they are brand new to Challenge, it gives them an introduction to the scientific method, research, writing a scientific paper, and presenting that research . They do all those things with the Science Fair. 

They will be doing a form of this each year in Challenge, including [00:02:00] a 15 page research paper in Challenge 1, and they also have to come up with a presentation to present that research paper, or the information they learned in the research paper, they are not supposed to just read the research paper.

 Science Fair is an introduction into this, and that is how we treated it as my Challenge A class. We treated it as an introduction, not they're supposed to be perfect scholars, seniors doing this Science Fair. They're the equivalent of 7th grade, and so that was how we treated it. 

For those not in Classical Conversations but still doing Science Fair, this episode will probably still be helpful because today I'm going to dive in how we prepared as a class, our local class, how other Challenge A classes in Classical Conversations prepare because some do it differently than what we did, how others structure their Science Fair day, how we structured our day and how it went, [00:03:00] some insights I got and what I would do differently. 

A quick edit here, this episode ended up being much longer than I anticipated, so I'm actually going to break it into two parts. So all the stuff that I said before, we will do except for how others structured their science fair day, how we structured our day, how it went, some insights, and what I would do differently.

That is all going to be in part two that will be released next Friday, but for now, go ahead and enjoy the Science Fair Prep episode.

Right now, welcome to Camp Hain, the adventures of a Catholic family that homeschools, public schools, online schools, and has one super obsessed with baseball kid. Currently, I, Tia Hain, am a Classical Conversations Challenge A Director, so a lot of this podcast channel is related to that for now. I post a new podcast every Friday, and I also post other videos on YouTube as well. I [00:04:00] also post videos about math, mostly algebra since I tutor, and even just our life.

We love our adventures, so come along for the ride and click the subscribe or follow button if you are a homeschooler, or are thinking about homeschooling, or even if this content just interests you. There, I've said the things. Let's move on into the content. 

We just had our Science Fair a couple of days ago. I mean literally two days ago from when I'm recording this. As I said before, Today, I'm going to dive into how we prepared for Science Fair, how other Classical Conversation Challenge A classes prepare, how others structure their day, and how we structured our day, and how it went, insights, and what I would do different.

 How to prepare, because this is going to make a big difference in how your Science Fair day goes, and how the presentations go. 

I found something called a Science Lab Journal. We use something called a Science Lab Journal in [00:05:00] Classical Conversations in the guide for Challenge A it has a section in the back that goes through

It goes through some ways to do your Science Lab Journal and then also during the weeks because in the guide each week is broken out It goes a little more in depth into what your child should be doing each week to prepare for Science Fair I'm not saying that it's lacking in any way because I think if you've done it before, like if you've directed a Challenge A class before or had your child go through it, I think it's totally fine what they have there, but as somebody who was directing who had never done a Science Fair before, my older son somehow completely missed Science Fair in the classes that he did during homeschool . He was not in Challenge A in Classical Conversations and he just never did it.

 This is just my younger son. I, as a director, have never done it before because I haven't directed Challenge A before. Even when I was [00:06:00] in school, we didn't do Science Fair in the schools I went to. I was talking with my husband and they didn't do Science Fair either. Science Fair was completely new to us.

Well, the woman who has directed Challenge A the two years before I did, she had found in one of the Facebook groups, somebody who put together this amazing PDF printed journal that's pretty much fill in able for the kids. I took that and I readjusted it for us and what we needed and there were a few things that were missing where she, she did an amazing job of putting in exactly what the kids need to do, like, go on to your computer, create a document called Hypothesis, type what you've written in here. But there were just a few places where it was missing and when you're the first one creating something that's just going to happen. No big deal. I just went in and did the double check and made sure all those [00:07:00] particular things were in there.

The dates and weeks were consistent with what we were doing. Then I went ahead and just printed that out in black and white, three hole punched it, then put it in these folders and gave it to the kids in my class. Technically, I gave it to the parents. I'll go into that in a second .

They had their Science Fair Lab Journal that they filled in all the information that they needed to fill in. 

I'm not sure if the copy of the original one is in the Facebook group, but if you want a copy of the one that I did, there is a Challenge A Director's Facebook group.

I have posted it in there, and I will post a link to that in the description. I am not just handing out the PDF to anyone because it's not technically my work. I built upon someone else's work and that person had put it in the Facebook group. I don't mind putting it in the Facebook group for other Challenge A directors to use.

 If you are a [00:08:00] Challenge A director, you can go ahead and join the Facebook group if you aren't already and then you get a copy of it there. I will put that link in. 

Most Classical Conversations Challenge A groups. They actually use just a blank journal I guess you could call it. You can find at Walmart there are they're in like graph paper form you can use those that was actually what we were originally going to use until I decided to do this other one and have it fill-able for the kids That is what most groups use and have the kids put all their information in there. Me as a director and also talking with my parents.

I made the decision to have the fillable PDF instead so it had absolutely everything listed out for the kids and it did just literally had lines on the paper where they needed to fill in [00:09:00] information, write their ideas, fill in the stuff for the bibliographies, for the research that they did. Everything was actually there, but with specific instructions on how to do it.

Because in my opinion, and this is just my opinion and the opinion of my parents, The 12 year olds that I had needed that extra help. I think expecting them to do everything perfectly, knowing this whole process and doing it in a blank form. They would know to write out their hypothesis, write out their ideas, put in all their information for their bibliography.

I'll be going over this fillable thing here in just a second so you know exactly what's in there, having them know all that stuff and put it in there. I think it can be done. I think having that extra help at this age is perfectly appropriate. In fact, we have a friend that was in our Classical Conversations group a couple of [00:10:00] years ago. She has since moved I believe across the country to a different group, and she is a Challenge A Director this year and one of our friends that is, she's still in touch with her.

We have one of those people that makes friends with everybody and stays in touch with everybody and is just that kind of person. She was telling her about how we were using this fillable PDF instead. I keep saying PDF, but please know that I printed it out. It was an actual book for them, but the electronic version is obviously a PDF.

So she was telling her about it. I went ahead and sent a copy of it to her and she had her class use it and said it was so much better and so helpful. They could focus on the experiment instead of trying to remember to do all the things and put all the things in there. 

Once again, that is just my opinion. Others have differing opinions, but that is that.

 I'm going to go through the Lab Journal right now. If you hear like pages flipping, that's just me flipping to the [00:11:00] next page. It starts off with just a front page, like a title page where the student can put their name, and then it has a nice welcome page and about the Lab Journal. The person who had it before had it marked in red where they had examples and I was not going to pay to print this thing in color. I changed that to there are highlighted examples. I went through and highlighted all the examples that are in it. Talks about some organization that you could do for your Final Research Paper. Then the next page, which would be page number three, is really nice because it's a project overview.

 It lists out all the items that you need to do, and then the week that they're due. Then you can put your own due date in, and when they started it, and when they finished. , The items listed are research problem, research question, background research, hypothesis, procedure, materials list, risk and safety, data analysis method, bibliography, experimentation, data analysis and [00:12:00] conclusion, complete display board, Final Research Paper, presentation practice, and the Science Fair itself.

 The first page of actual work for them to do is an ideas page that and it says week 11 right at the top and then it literally has checkboxes for things that they need to do. The first one is read Science Fair appendix. That's in your Challenge A guide. The second one is come up with a list of three to five Science Fair ideas and then gives some nice preparation for how to do that.

 Like on this one, it says think of a problem you might like to investigate or experiments you might like to do and then there's literally, lines there for the kids to write some ideas they might want. Then does have on here, get parents initials for showing that you actually did the things or the student actually did the things.

And then the next one for week 11 is the research problem. Has a nice example on [00:13:00] here of how to word, in paragraph form, what the research problem is. Then it just says write out your research problem below in one to two paragraphs. Then at the bottom of that, another thing I really like is go on your computer and create a folder and name it Science Fair.

This is where you will be storing all your type documents. Then below that is create a document called research problem on your computer. Type the research problem you just wrote. Then it has print a copy to bring to community day. The students would print copies of all these things and each week I would look through them to make sure that they were on the right track and it really helped.

It kept the students on the right track. They never fell behind. That was really, really helpful for I would say all of us since my son was also doing the Science Fair. Then the last one is get a parent to initial that you have properly completed your research problem and then parents initials right there.

 The next page is [00:14:00] week 12 research question. It walks them through how to develop a good research question. Then again at the bottom of that it says on your computer create a document called research question. Has the students typing all this stuff up as they're doing it so it doesn't come to the very end the last week of Science Fair and then they have to go through their Lab Journal and then type everything up because that would take forever. This way they've already got the documents created and waiting there as well as printing them up to bring in to the director, me. To see if they're on the right track and then at the very end they take copies of all these different things and put them together for their combined research plan. They can take that and make a copy and turn that into their Final Research Paper and it made it so much easier.

Also on week 12, we have background research. Walks them through how to go find books or on the internet to find things that would be good [00:15:00] background research. Gives examples on how to do that. Has it spelled out right here, book, title, website, name to fill in the blanks. They have all the stuff for their bibliography. They don't have to worry about that. And then gives a couple of blank pages. It's pages with lines for notes for the different sources that they found for their background research. It's like source 1, source 2, and source 3 to have at least three sources. 

After that has single keyword outline. For those that have done Classical Conversations Essentials, we use IEW, which stands for Institute of Excellence in Writing, and within that program we use a keyword outline a lot, and so the students learn how to use a keyword outline. Gives them examples on how to take all that research that they did and turn it into a keyword outline so they can write it up in three to five paragraphs.

 After that create a document [00:16:00] in your computer called background research where you type all this stuff up from all the notes that you just took and the keyword outline that you did. On week 12 we also have hypothesis and walks them through how to come up with a hypothesis. Also gives a link for sciencebuddies dot org where that helps you walk through how to come up with a hypothesis at sciencebuddies dot org. They have a lot of stuff for Science Fair for things like ideas and examples and how to do stuff. Once again at the bottom type it up in your computer. You've got it there. 

 On week 13 is where they work on procedures. Gives a great example of how to write up procedures. Also gives an example of how to not do it.

For A here it says write your paper in the present tense using imperative sentences like a cookbook. Don't say I will boil water. You say boil water and then list specific measurements and quantities for everything. You don't say water the [00:17:00] plant. You do say every day at 7 p m water each plant with one quarter cup of 40 degree Fahrenheit water. 

It's absolutely wonderful. If you are going to be doing Science Fair, especially through Classical Conversations, and you want to use something like this, I highly recommend it. Like I said before, I will put a link in the description, but it is in that Facebook group.

 It has identify your controls. Controls are the things that don't change with your experiment. They must stay consistent and exactly the same without any change. Remember, you can have only one variable. Determining your controls is important.

In keeping with the plant project, your controls might be the type of soil, the plant species. It has on here, define your standard of success. The kids write that out. After they've done their procedures, they write a nice introduction.

It has a page for them writing their steps. It says, remember, your steps must be measurable and repeatable. They learn how to write their procedures. I have to [00:18:00] say going through this stuff, all my students did a great job of writing their procedures. It has create a document on your computer, so they do that. 

 Week 14 is work on their materials list, so they figure out where they're going to get it, if they have to buy it, if they can borrow it, if they already have it at home, and write that out, and then it has pages for them to write their materials list. Of course, it has create a document on your computer called materials. 

 It gives you a nice wrap up. Create your combined research plan based off of all this stuff that you have gathered so far. Do you have your research problem, research question, background research, hypothesis, procedure, and materials list.

By the way, if you hadn't noticed this yet, I started on week 11, that's not week 11 of doing the Science Fair. This is for Classical Conversations week 11 in the semester. It's week 11, week 12, week 13, and week 14 of the semester because how we do it in Classical Conversations is [00:19:00] we're finishing up the first semester with starting the Science Fair.

They do all of their experimentation during their Christmas break and then they come back for the second semester to finish up the Science Fair stuff. 

It has here week 15. Develop your risk and safety. It has your possible risks and then come up with the safety measures to mitigate those risks and then it has you write it out in paragraph form of how to do that. For example, my son's happened to be having cans over, you would heat up the can with 100 milliliters of water to get water vapor in it and then you would turn the can over. If you turn it over in cold water it crushes and it's really cool but we tried it with warm water like room temperature water as well as hot water.

 That is his safety risk is he had the can over a high heat, so he had to make sure he had an oven mitt. That was how he decided to mitigate that risk. 

 On week five it says your data and analysis methods. [00:20:00] You have to choose how you're going to measure everything. It gives you lots of examples.

It has where to record your information. A graph, a table, a journal, photographs, other. Then how to measure results. Weight on a scale, length on a ruler, volume, mass change. It's really, really helpful. 

Then the last thing It has for week 15 is bibliography, just to make sure you don't forget to type up your bibliography. It's mainly typing it up. The kids already wrote it out, but now they're going to type it up and that becomes their full combined research plan to walk them into doing the experimentation, which is break week. 

 At the top here, it says break weeks experiment, and it walks them through how they're going to do their experiments, and obviously that's going to change depending on what their experiments are.

 Then week 16, when they come back, it's analysis of their data or results. It walks through how to analyze that stuff. This is where if you're a director, you're teaching these kids how to make bar graphs or pie charts or something [00:21:00] that looks really cool on their science board. 

 Also in week 16 is drawing conclusions. It walks through and asks them questions so they can draw conclusions about how their experimentation worked. Lots of great questions for them to develop some really good paragraphs for drawing conclusions. It walks through how to do those paragraphs and gives a great example. 

 Also it says beginning of Final Research Paper. It walks them through how to take what they have for their combined research plan. Make a copy of that and then reformat some things to have the start of their Final Research Paper. That way, when they're coming down to week 18, where they have to have their Final Research Paper done, they don't have to scramble and do a lot of work.

Week 17, It has to complete the display board and It walks them through how to make their nice little trifold display board and adding stuff on there. It has a lot of stuff [00:22:00] listed and for when we did our display boards, it seemed like a lot. Some of my students didn't put all the things up there on the display board, but they did have them in their Final Research Paper.

 It walks through for week 18, how to finish up your Final Research Paper and have it looking nice for all the judges. 

 Week 17 and 18 is presentation practice. It gives them a lot of great ideas on how to write up their presentation. Their presentation is a short speech that is two to five minutes long. It will summarize your Science Fair project. It gives ideas for what to include in their presentation. 

It also gives a nice checklist of all the things you should be doing for your presentation for the etiquette, such as dress nicely when giving your presentation. If you use prompt cards for your presentation, make sure that you keep your eyes up. Point to your science board often during your presentation. 

The last week is Week 19 Science Fair [00:23:00] Day, because we did our Science Fair on our week 19 day and I will describe that in just a minute, but it also has a nice checklist of all the things that you want to have with you for your Science Fair day.

 That is the Science Fair Lab Journal that we used and it was wonderful.

In our class, I have it so the kids can earn special treats up to two times a semester. Basically, if they have their parents sign off on all their work they did for the week in their guide. Then at mid semester, I give them a treat. At the end of the semester, I give them a treat. It worked out perfectly for the mid semester one that they had a movie night.

Obviously kind of did this on purpose. The kids had a movie night. The parents of one of the kids in my class. They have a really neat barn outside that is set up [00:24:00] to play movies. The kids went out there and watched a movie and had popcorn.

The parents were inside the house and I walked them through this Science Lab Journal. I went ahead and just printed up copies of it, and put them in like those plastic folders with the three hole punches in them and then handed them out to the parents. Found some cheap ones on Amazon. And walked them through the whole thing on how to do it and how it worked.

And remember, most of my kids had not done Science Fair before. Only three of the parents had. One of those parents actually was busy that night. They couldn't stay for it, but she's like, we've done Science Fair like a bunch of times, so it doesn't matter. Then the other two parents were there and they had not used this type of Science Lab Journal before, so they were very appreciative of having all this stuff laid out and spelled out for the kids to follow.

 I walked them through that basically like I just walked you through it, but I [00:25:00] was a little bit slower about it. That helped the parents a lot, so they were able to help their kids with that. 

This is the end of part one of Science Fair. Part two will be released next week where I will go into how the actual day went, how we set it up, what other communities do, some insights I got, and what I would do differently. Until then.

When Carl Sagan said, we live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology, he might not have known about Classical Conversations and how well it does in preparing students with science.

With Science Fair as one of their first stepping stones, I hope we can eventually prove him wrong. If you like this episode, give it a thumbs up, let the algorithm do the work, and I can make more. Subscribe or follow for more like this. Until next time.