The White House Science Fair
"Since the first days of the United States, our leaders have recognized the importance of science and especially engineering. Several among the founding fathers were inventors and scientists themselves. George Washington continually experimented with farm crops. Thomas Jefferson’s estate is replete with weather and time-keeping instruments. Benjamin Franklin made discoveries and developed inventions that are celebrated even today. Abraham Lincoln, nominally a lawyer, held a patent. It should come as no surprise that our Constitution calls for the legal protection of scientific inquiry and discovery." - Bill Nye, MAS Fellow
The second White House Science Fair was held today, February 7th. The president will be honoring over 100 students chosen from over 40 different competitions that have excelled exceptionally in science and mathematics. Bill Nye, MAS Fellow, was in attendance this year as well as at the first fair held in October of 2010.
The goal of the fair is to highlight the necessity of STEM education and renew a focus on these subjects in our country. "The belief that we belong on the cutting edge of innovation, that's an idea as old as America itself," President Obama said. "We're a nation of thinkers, dreamers, believers in a better tomorrow."
Of about 30 exhibits at the White House Science Fair, one was from Massachusetts. An eleven year old girl named Hannah Wyman from St. Anna's school in Leominster won the grand prize in her age group (9-12) for Microsoft's first-ever U.S. Kodu Cup. Hannah won the grand prize for her video game, Toxic, which is now downloadable for free off of the Kodu Game Lab site. In Hannah's game, you solve puzzles and collect coins, hearts, and apples that you can use to remove soot from trees, convince friends to plant more trees, and zap pollution clouds. The main goal of the game is to save the environment.
The participants of another exhibit are in the photo above: (from the left) Gaby Dempsey, 12, Kate Murray, 13, and Mackenzie Grewell, 13, reading in the Red Room of the White House after setting up their science fair exhibit yesterday. The three girls, part of the Flying Monkeys First Lego League Team from Ames Middle School in Ames, Iowa. These Girl Scouts have developed a prosthetic hand device to help a three-year-old toddler without fingers write.
From just two examples of over 30 exhibits at the fair today, you can see that America's youth hold a brilliance that could change the future. What has been displayed in these science fairs all over the country is potential and success. These young people are simply amazing not only for what they create, but for their motivation. Most of these projects had the similar goal of creating a positive and lasting change for our world.
The President has held the fair as part of his commitment made at the launch of his Educate to Innovate campaign. In the last year he also made a surprise appearance at the New York City Science Fair, as well as meeting with the three young women who won the Google Science Fair. At the first fair in 2010, Obama stated, “If you win the NCAA championship, you come to the White House. Well, if you're a young person and you produce the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too.”
President Obama and Bill Nye certainly have the right idea about STEM education. If we cannot create and innovate, we have lost the true spirit and value of America. As Bill Nye put it, "If we choose not to engage in fundamental research—not to pursue new technologies and systems, not to discover new properties of numbers and atomic structures, not to explore the oceans and outer space—we leave that work to others, to emerging countries, who have seen from the outside what science and technology can do for a society."
Photo Credit: Sonya N. Hebert, White House
The official White House article.
Video on the White House Science Fair.
Written by: Bailey Mannix
