|
Village Science conducted a microscope workshop entitled “Big Earth, Little World" for the Earth Day 2011 celebration in Vientiane, Lao PDR. Over 200 students from the Lao-American College and Neerada School had the opportunity to do hands-on experiments with microscopes. Students received an overview of the equipment, and then were encouraged to create their own viewing slides highlighting themes of natural resources in Laos and the impact of human activities on the larger world.
For most students it was the first time they had ever looked through a microscope.
Representatives from LIRE were there with a hand-washing presentation that was popular with the students.
The event was sponsored by the US Embassy in Vientiane and hosted by the Lao-American College, thanks for bringing together such a wonderful event. And thanks to The Language Project for loaning us some microscopes.
   
You can find more photos on our Facebook page: Village Science on Facebook. |
Check out that poster!
We're getting ready for Earth Day 2011 with microscope activities that we will do with students at the Lao-American Corner in Vientiane. We're setting up microscope workstations so students can learn about the environment with their own eyes and hands. We're expecting about 200 students tomorrow from the Lao American College and Neerada School.
Mr. Sengdao finished the poster yesterday, isn't it beautiful? |
|
 We set up 3 microscopes in the Luang Prabang library last weekend. It was the first time the staff at the library and the students had ever looked through a microscope.
We started with some prepared slides, a piece of microfilm with the letters ABC. It is an easy way for the students to learn how to use the focus knob and get comfortable gently moving the slides side to side.
The students teach each other how to switch between top-lighting and through-lighting, and how to rotate through the objective lenses. Students teaching each other is an important part of the Village Science pedagogy, read more at Village Science Pedagogy.
They quickly look through the rest of the prepared slides and we move on making our own slides. The structure of a leaf becomes a whole new world where veins and cells become visible and ribs are covered in tiny hairs. A 5,000 kip note becomes a contest to find the tiny hidden text used to combat counterfeiters. Students take turns plucking hair from each other and making jokes about who took a shower today and who didn't. Looking at ants is usually everyone's favorite when they can see the mandibles and leg joints.
The students are curious to look at their blood and the bacteria on their hands but we're saving those experiments for next time.
Thanks to Anne Xuan Clark for helping with teaching and running for supplies as needed. Thanks Annie! |
|
We did a couple introductory projects with the microscope over the past couple weeks, now it's time to get messy! Onion cells make a logical next lesson as the thin section is easy to prepare and plant cell structures are easy to see.
The staff learned how to pull off the delicate onion membrane and prepare a wet mount on a slide. Getting the air bubbles out is always the tricky part... It became a competition to see who could prepare the best slide and take the best photo.
This is a photo the staff took through the microscope with a point and shoot camera. You can clearly see the cell walls and nuclei, not bad eh?
 |
 We held the first-ever paper airplane contest in Luang Prabang! A poster was taped to the door and a 1 meter paper airplane was hung from the ceiling to advertise. About 20 kids showed up of which there was one girl, a couple of university students, and a handful of novice monks. Several kids had never made a paper airplane before!
The first paper airplane was named "Laos Airlines" and was a simple airplane with which some of the kids were familiar. The idea was to get over shyness and relax into a new learning environment. The first experiment was put a paper clip on the back or the front of the airplane and see what happens. The next experiment was to cut flaps into wings and tail of the plane and see what happens. Planes were flying every direction! I had typed up several airplane instruction sheets with names like Sua-Tiger to encourage different designs.
Next were the contests, the categories to be judged were: distance, speed, flight accuracy, landing accuracy, and the completely open-ended creativity category. The kids really got into building a plane to win the contests. There were prizes at stake! After the ensuing madness, a prize of two notebooks and two pens were awarded to each winner.
 Getting kids past their shyness with foreigners and a new style of learning was easy. Language was the real barrier for me but I had my mad scientist assistant, Soulisuck, translate all the difficult concepts to Laos language. Getting kids to think on their own and be creative will be the ongoing challenge.
Carol, Alan, Linda, and Derin were the judges for the contests. Thanks for helping out, I hope you had as much fun as I did!
|
|
At the library everyone is plugged into photography and photoshop and they create a poster to introduce themselves. Just because I was a teacher didn't mean that I was exempt. So I asked my sister, Jennifer Spelman, the whiz photographer and photoshopper, to create a poster for me.
This is what she made...
I fell out of my chair laughing, but the real experiment was to see what the kids would think.
University level physics students do not recognize the middle photo. Every day I get questions about it, "Is that you Grandfather?" Amazing that only one person has recognized the middle photo as a famous person, and even then could not say who it was or why he was famous.
Is there a need for science teachers and new science materials in the Lao PDR? |
|
|
|
|
RSS