Science Festival in Ostrow Wielkopolski, Poland
for the World Year in Physics 2005
Rafal Jakubowski
Junior High School in Gorzyce Wielkie, Poland
About Ostrow Wielkopolski
http://www.ostrow-wielkopolski.um.gov.pl
Ostrow Wielkopolski has over 74 thousand inhabitants and is the chief town in the Ostrow district, an important economic, educational, cultural and sports center in the Southern Wielkopolska. Ostrow offers a variety of educational opportunities and services . There is a well developed network of vocational and general education secondary schools. Also, more and more higher education schools come into being here. In our city we have 6 junior high schools with 3000 students and 14 high schools with 9000 students.
The First Ostrow Science Festival
The Festival was held from 23 – 25 May, 2005. Attending the Festival were 6000 students from 25 local junior and 15 Senior high schools. The Festival was held in three locations: at the Technical High School in Ostrow, at the First High School in Ostrow and at the Junior High School at Przygodzice. The Festival was organized by a 13 member organizing team within an association called Aid for Local Community “PROMETEUSZ”.
The Festival was sponsored by the Town Authority , the Orlen Oil Company and supported by the local County Authorities. Also, the Organizers received grants from a fund of the Town Authority and from Orlen.
The Mayor of the Town and Zenon Gubanski Ph .Dr, retired physics teacher, Honorary Citizen of Ostrow Wielkopolski and Ostrovian 2004 ,were honorary patrons of the festival.
In the World Year of Physics we brought to our young physics students and students of the other sciences the excitement of science. Each day our lecturers and presenters focused on a different science: Monday was dedicated to physics, Tuesday to biology and Wednesday to chemistry. The way and manner of presentation of the subject-matter, with an emphasis on the use of modern teaching aids, resulted in the events of the Festival having a powerful impact on the students’ interest in science.
The Festival was opened by Mr. Piotr Walkowski, the Head of Prometeusz.
Dr. Zenon Gubanski, a longtime teacher at The Third High School in Ostrow, delivered a speech under the title “The year of 2005, a year of Albert Einstein and a year of Physics”.
The inaugural lecture was given by Professor Ryszard Naskrecki, vice – dean of the Physics Department at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, about “Nuclear energy – chance or danger ?”.
During the Festival there were presentations by 40 professors and teachers from junior high schools, high schools, universities, technical universities, including the Agricultural Academy of Poznan, Warsaw University, and the Economic Academy of Wroclaw.
On Monday the Festival was held in all three places to accommodate all of the exhibits and presentations.
From the technical schools there were five lectures on physics and the audience of each lecture gathered up to 500 students. One hour long presentations which included topics on nuclear energy were also attended by local councilors , education administrators and other invited guests.
The other presentation topics were: “ Is there life beyond the Earth?”, “Photoelectric effect and the nature of the World”, “Software and computers” and “Glider aerodynamics”.
Immediately, following each lecture , the students could extend their learning experience by attending very interesting related workshops. Also, in the corridors, they could see physics experiments which were prepared by physics students from Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan.
Many students wanted to be involved in the workshops prepared by two teachers from a Junior high school of Kalisz., Grazyna Generowicz and Malgorzata Maslowska. “Why herrings don’t swim in a lake and what do they have in common with crisp carrots”. This workshop won a European Competition for Physics on Stage Reward two years ago , which was presented in Holland.
Students were also interested in the workshop “Effectiveness of ammunition against a tank fireside of a science laboratory” . It was presented by doctor engineer Maciej Klosak who was working in the area of the strength of materials for his Ph.Dr and demonstrated shooting at materials similar to those found in a military tank.
The most popular workshop for Ostrow adults was the workshop “Solar Battery” because of their interest in saving money as they explained to us, that the price of electricity is always increasing and they want to explore the economical advantage of this technology.
In a special theatre show students could watch “Optical phenomena in Nature”.
Also students were interested and surprised to learn “How to use the internet and computer programs at physics and mathematics lessons” At another computer workshop students could appreciate “Virtual experiments in physics”.
At the First High School in Ostrow, where we started at 12 o’clock , there were three lectures. Two of them on mathematics and one on physics. The first lecture was about “The Golden number”. The next one was on “Physics of the shooting whip”. ( Clickity-clix whip).
The last one was “Geometry of a polyhedron” which was delivered by a teacher from Krakow and his students from a junior high school in Wieliczka. The same mathematics lecture was presented at the Junior High School of Przygodzice earlier in the morning.
The second day was dedicated to biology , but physics was still being presented at the technical school.
The biology presentations and exhibits were moved to the small town near Ostrow called Przygodzice.
At Przygodzice the Festival theme in biology was “Ecological forum”.
The Przygodzice extension of the Festival and Forum was opened by Pawel Dolata, vice – president of OTOP – Polish Society of Ornithology, who lectured about “Birds around us”.
Students could also listen to a broad range of other presentations including ; “Wildlife Conservation”, “The origin of flowers in Nature”, and “Can fauna help in the research in archeology and “Special flora of the Ostrow district”. Professors from the Economic Academy in Wroclaw lectured on “The principles of learning – are computers better than the professors?” and “Intelligent systems – the core end examples of our learning”.
For convenience and to make use of the excellent facilities in the chemistry laboratories and experiments were carried out at Przygodzice at the same time as the biology events, in advance of the formal chemistry day. At the Przygodzice school there is a very interesting and a very advanced chemistry laboratory where there were four interesting lab workshops: “Interesting chemical reactions”, “Types of chemistry reactions”, “Precipitation reactions” and “Hydrolysis of salts” provided by Wanda Nawrocka, a teacher from Junior High School at Przygodzice.
After the formal lectures students could go to workshops held outside in the very beautiful landscape with lakes and flora and fauna. In the background.
On Tuesday the Festival activities were started by Professor Gaj from Warsaw University with his lecture “Physics and musical instruments”. Almost 600 students attended that lecture.
Prior to the lecture was a guitar concert played by the students of the Salesian Junior High school in Ostrow one of whom was Ania Pasiak.
The lecture about musical instruments was followed by a lecture “Application of nuclear physics in diagnostics and therapy” presented by Professor Zygmunt Szeflinski from Warsaw University.
The next lectures with experiments prepare scientists from the Institute of Molecular Physics Polish Academy of Science from Poznan with head of Division of Low Temperature Physics Professor Zbigniew Trybula “Experiments with liquid Helium and Nitrogen”.
The final lecture was “We are waiting for Carbon Valley , after the famous Silicon Valley”.
Every workshop was repeated three or four times for different groups and their teachers.
Students could see or do “Interesting and simple physics experiments”, could see interesting “Physics toys” and could learn about their significance and principles. Other workshops included how to make “Animation banners on an internet site using Flesh” and “How to make digital pictures”.
Tuesday students also could “Make and start simple electronic schemes that could be taken home to work on and experiment with independently”.
On the second day of the Festival students gave “power point” presentations which won two Festival competitions arranged for students of junior high schools . The junior high presentations needed to conform to the prompt , “I like”. The High school students presentations needed to be presented about “Physics, chemistry or biology in the progress of civilization”. The presentations were judged by Professor Marta Kicinska from Warsaw University – coordinator of “The World Year in Physics” in Poland.
The junior high school, competition “I like…” was won by Alexandra Kazmierczak, The Junior High School in Wielowies won “ I like Albert Einstein”.
The High school winner was Michal Lewicki from Technical High School in Ostrow: “DNA Exploration and its use in our time”
Another competition was developed around posters presented by both the junior and high school students “Physics and Chemistry phenomena around us” and the winner was Magdalena Jaworska from Junior High School in Russow: “Phenomena in Space”.
There were a total of 20 presentations and 30 posters for Festival Competition from the schools of Southern Wielkopolska.
The last day of the Festival was run at both Ostrow and Przygodzice.
The main theme for this day was chemistry. On that day there were six lectures. The lectures started with “The role of didactic devices in modern teaching process”. The second lecture “Chemical elements of rare earths not at all rare”. The next lecture was “How to look like the quantum world”. After quantum world was “Nanotechnology today and in the past” and then “Molecular strainer”. The last one was “Love chemistry”.
On that day we did not have the chemistry labs because they were incorporated into the program for Tuesday at Przygodzice .
On Wednesday the students could choose from six different workshops that were offered and they could observe the pyrotechnic show presented twice during the day by chemistry students from Adam Mickiewicz University.
On the last day of Festival we publicised not only the “World year of physics” but also the “European Year of Citizen Education”. We prepared workshops on “How to read with understanding and how to use and understand the constitution of Rzeczpospolita Polska (Republic of Poland)”.
On Wednesday most of the workshops included informatics with topics like: “Do computers think”, “Artificial intelligence in a few words”, “A new exam in informatics in High School”, “Internet dangers. Children on the net”. And “Your website made in 10 minutes - Web Content Management System” and last “Electronic signs – step by step”.
On Wednesday we also had three workshops and two lectures at Przygodzice.
The lectures “Using mold practically, in other words how to produce lemon juice with mold” and the last one “We already have summer brewed beer, what was beer production like yesterday and what it is like today”.
And physics workshops: “Experiments with microwaves” and biology workshops:
“Eating under a magnifying glass – microbiology on our plates” and the last one “Eating or health – it is your choose”.
Acknowledgments
I want to thanks all of our lecturers who without compensation presented thought provoking and inspiring lectures and workshops.
Special thanks to Chemistry and Physics Deans Professor Ryszard Naskrecki and Professor Stefan Lis who supported us with their broad and outstanding experience in the arrangement and organization of the First Ostrow Science Festival.
Also we thank our sponsors: The People of the Grant Fund for the City of Ostrow who encouraged financial support by the City of Ostrow Authority and the Oil Company, Orlen. We thank the students and adults that participated and attended all of the numerous events. Also, we thank our local government: the Subprefecture of the County of Ostrow and the Ostrow Town Authority.