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Students Achieve Top Awards in the First Ever Online Hawaii State Science Fair
Students at Hanalani School’s Lower School learn the scientific method in fourth through sixth grades, and each year students practice the scientific method by undertaking a science fair project. Select students and their projects advance to the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools (HAIS) District Science Fair that takes place in February. For the past several years, Hanalani 6th graders have done very well at the HAIS District Fair and have advanced further to the state fair.
This year three 6th grade projects advanced to the Hawaii State Science and Engineering Fair (HSSEF). The 63rd HSSEF was scheduled to take place live at the Hawaii Convention Center in April. In March, as the COVID-19 pandemic was intensifying, news came from the fair’s organizer, the Hawaii Academy of Science (HAS), that the in-person HSSEF competition scheduled for April had being cancelled. In lieu of an in-person fair, the HAS announced that they were working on organizing an alternative: a virtual fair. The three students whose projects had advanced—Haylee Ichioka, Max Manibog, and Isaiah Sakihara—and I had been anticipating the upcoming in-person fair and were executing steps toward that end. Everything had to be placed on hold as we awaited further instructions from the HAS concerning the virtual fair.
In a live, in-person fair, students display their projects using poster boards and speak with judges who dig deep into various facets of each project—that is how the state science and engineering fair has always taken place. When the HAS decided to hold a virtual fair, new mechanisms were put into place. Students still had to send in their project abstracts and fill out requisite forms, but rather than using their display boards which were ready to go, the student now had to digitally upload the various project components to the fair website. In addition to uploading the abstract, problem question, hypothesis, materials, procedure, data table, graphs, pictures, and conclusion, each student had to record an audio presentation of her/his project on the fair website, simulating the live presentations that she/he would have given judges. Once the judging was underway, students had to be ready to answer via email any question from judges that might come.
The (Virtual) 63rd HSSEF officially concluded on May 4 and winners were announced. We were thrilled to learn that Haylee and Max had won—Haylee won First Place/Best in Category for her project, Phone Battery Flip Out! (Embedded Systems), and Max won Third Place/Best in Category for his project, The Slippery Slope (Materials Science).
We are amazed but perhaps not surprised by what Haylee, Isaiah, and Max had been able to do through the virtual format and are very proud of what each had accomplished. It would of course have been a great experience for the students had their participation in the state fair been in-person, but in retrospect, the virtual fair presented an unique opportunity for students to demonstrate their learning in an innovative manner. For instance, students had practiced and honed their oral communication skills as they readied for the school, district, and state fairs. The students still got to orally present their projects at the state fair, albeit virtually.
Transitioning from the in-person to the online structure parallels the move that Hanalani Schools made in transitioning toward distance learning. Because the students had learned to use digital tools and were already adept at doing and submitting work online, they were able to quickly adapt and undertake tasks on the virtual platform.
Transitioning from the in-person to the online structure parallels the move that Hanalani Schools made in transitioning toward distance learning. Because the students had learned to use digital tools and were already adept at doing and submitting work online, they were able to quickly adapt and undertake tasks on the virtual platform.
