Develop a passion for science with the Science-con competition

The Science-con competition, organized by a group of ADP10 students, attracted many enthusiastic participants.

The contest provided an opportunity not only for participants to showcase their scientific knowledge, but also for the project’s organizers to hone their skills. 

“We established Science-con to provide other students with an exciting experience within PennSchool’s grounds. Our main inspiration was from one of Brian Greene’s books, “The Elegant Universe,” which set the theme for the competition. The goal of this competition is to encourage anyone who is daring enough to take part to improve their presentation and public speaking skills. We initially came up with the idea of a science-based speaking competition for fun but ended up committing to it and making it happen. 

To be completely honest, I didn’t think so many people would sign up, as it was a minor organization within the school. The first few days were dreadful, as we were getting no contestants. However, after getting our first participant, excitement filled the room. As we waited each day for more people to sign up, the number of participants rose faster than we anticipated. That was exhilarating. We could hardly wait to see what they had in store for us.

There were some challenges along the way, such as the time frames we had, the rooms available on the day of the competition, and making sure our participants were available, to name a few. Overcoming said challenges was quite the task as we had to personally make sure the participants were available. As a result, we were able to fully immerse ourselves in the presentations given by the participants. I was quite surprised with some of the topics they came up with. They were definitely at the more advanced end of the spectrum for their age and level. I was able to learn a lot from the competition, as the materials presented were very detailed. It also appeared that I wasn’t the only one learning, as the participants only got better throughout their presentations. Overall, we enjoyed the competition and are proud to have organized it. The outcome was highly rewarding.”

One of the most impressive features of this competition is that it was planned by a group of grade 10 students, who simply wanted to create an exciting learning environment for others. This they achieved with great success. 

PennSchool takes pride in providing opportunities for students to create their own projects. Such opportunities allow them to express themselves through various roles while also creating a learning environment for the PennSchool community as a whole. PennSchool strives for this as one of its core values.