Overview


A Typical Saturday Morning

Each Saturday morning, the students arrive at their assigned site and meet for 15 minutes for a "Home Room" activity. A newsworthy science topic is discussed, often introduced by the students themselves. Then they break into smaller groups for 1.5 hours to attend one of several parallel instructional sessions.

A sampling of Instructional sessions: Build and launch model rockets (the start of each season). Learn how bits of medicine are packaged into capsules and pills by making them out of powdered sugar or gelatine and cookie sprinkles. Find the iron particles in cereal with magnets. Hear and see the sound vibrations of musical instruments. Dissect frogs or cow eyes. Build a scale model of the solar system with Playdoh. “See” music and sounds on a signal analyser. Home Projects and Parent’s Day

Home Projects and Parents Day

After the Christmas-New Year break, students begin to work on an individual science project. Typical projects consist of doing a science experiment, constructing an electronic circuit, writing a computer program, or learning how something works through literature research. The season ends with a science mini conference for all participants, called Parents Day. Held at Montgomery College, the students, in many parallel sessions, each give ten minute presentations about their project to their parents and peers. Concluding the morning's activities, an invited speaker presents a short talk on their scientific work and entertains questions from the AIS students.

Some Parents Day project titles

Hold your Breath! (a study in hyperventilation techniques, a special invited speaker presents a short talk about science and entertains questions from the AIS students, testing adults and children). Electromagnets (how the number of turns, current and core material affect magnetic strength). Designing and building a self-contained circuit mounted on a shoe for the visually impaired to locate obstacles. Will the World End? (a study of the "predictions" for the end of the world at the turn of the 21st century). Robot control (using Lego Mind storm sets and Arduino control circuits programmed in Java).