In Yeshivat Noam, one academic objective is to foster a love, enthusiasm and appreciation of science. To achieve this goal, the fifth grade participates in a grade wide Science Olympiad, using the guidelines of the Elementary Science Olympiad National Program. This initiative offers a wide variety of competitions to engage the various interests and strengths of the students.
Some competitions include:
Cool It: creating a device that will keep a frozen ice cube from melting for 30 minutes inculcating an understanding of materials that conduct and conserve heat.
Bridge Building: creating a long and strong bridge out of straws and pins that will be durable and hold an eraser for 10 seconds.
Barge Building and Clay Boats: building seaworthy devices that can carry the greatest load and teach the students about buoyancy.
Name the Scientist: allows the students to learn the contributions of over 40 scientists.
Grab a Gram: gives the children an opportunity to work with a triple beam scale and learn to estimate 50 grams of a given item.
The favorite of the students is aerodynamics. The students quickly learn that building paper airplanes to hit a specified target is much more difficult than they initially thought.
The students worked with their teammate to understand the concepts involved in their competition and to come up with a strategy to attain their goal. Work was completed both in school and at home. Finally, the long awaited event arrived. The students engaged in their competitions with enthusiasm, respect for the other teams and a strong desire to be successful. The students learned that hard work paid off. Rachelli Yabra produced a cup of rice that measured exactly 50 grams. Avigayil Vinar was able to load 88 pennies into her barge. Ben Fisher and Gedaliah Dimbert correctly answered all 24 questions in Name the Scientist. Emmi Lefkowitz and Kayla Antosofsky tied Jake Glick and Netanel Lipshitz for the longest and strongest bridge, 35 inches across its span and strong enough to hold two erasers for over 10 seconds. Maayan Konigsberg and Yedida Baer’s ice cube melted only ⅙ of a milliliter!
Congratulations to all of the winners and most importantly Yeshivat Noam is proud to have achieved the goal of fostering a love, appreciation and enthusiasm for science that the Science Olympiad experience inculcated into the fifth graders.
