Some pics from the event – i wish I’d gotten better ones on my phone…

I had the opportunity to volunteer with the Hawaii State Science Olympiad which took place on Saturday, March 2nd, at Leeward Community College. Kids from elementary school through high school, from all over the island participated, and threw down their science knowledge. I was highly impressed with any kid attending such a function, since I myself never was motivated or encouraged to do such things as a child / teen.

My Chemistry Prof. sent out a request for volunteers, so I decided to help out. I find stuff like this interesting. I helped with setting up some lab stations for high school kids who would be doing chemistry experiments. There were 15 groups total, who cycled through the lab in groups of one – two students. Each group performed two separate experiments. I wasn’t too sure what they were doing, though one of the experiments looked like ionic compound solution mixing — which is what we did recently in class. The other, I wasn’t as sure about. It looked like chemical reactions with temperature stimulus. The kids had 22 minutes on each experiment, and filled out their lab exams and we helped to clean up afterwards.

I was happy to be handed a little camera to use to take pictures of the students throughout the event. Hopefully they turned out all right. Jesse, one of the other volunteers there took the camera for a little while and snapped some really good shots with it. So, I may never know if they get published whether or not he took them, or I did.

Ah, to be young and motivated, and so intelligent. All these kids have so much potential. My slacker former self probably would never have wanted to participate in such things, but my older self is certainly enjoying the position of a spectator. (I would not want the pressure of being a contestant in anything science-related, personally).