Over the Feb. 4 weekend, the Yupiit Picirayarait Cultural Center hosted the 2023 Lower Kuskokwim School District (LKSD) Science Fair. About 50 student scientists, ranging from third through 12th grade, set up their respective tri-folded poster boards and presented their projects to judges.
Among them were Karley Pavilla and Adrianna Dull. Their project materials included a yoga mat, camera, timer, notebook, pencil, stethoscope, and a pulse oximeter. It took a bit of coaxing, but Pavilla eventually laid it all out.
“It’s about exercising and the human heart rate,” she said. “Our research was, like, burpees are the most rapidly, how do I put this in words? It's accelerating your heart rate more than walking, running, and kickboxing.”
If you’ve ever done a burpee, then you probably intuitively feel this project, and their research about getting heart rates up, to be true. Burpees are a series of movements through four different positions: first a squat, then a push-up plank, then a leap forward, and then back to standing as quickly as possible. Pavilla and Dull linked their research to a larger issue.
“American Indians and Alaskan Natives are also a high prevalence and risk factors of obesity and diabetes; 14.7% of Alaskan Natives have diabetes,” Pavilla said. “One in six American Indians and Alaska Natives, adult Alaska Native adults, have been diagnosed with diabetes, more than double the prevalence rate of the general United States population. In addition, almost 33% of all American Indians and Alaskan Natives are obese. Nationally, 41.7% of adults have obesity.”
This process that Pavilla and Dull are laying out is part of a larger lesson in curiosity. Bethel-area teachers are helping students use the scientific method to understand the world.
“They ask a question, they guess about what the answer to that question might be, then they investigate it,” said Gladys Jung Elementary School teacher Tania Erickson-Grant.
Erickson-Grant teaches fifth-grade students. She said that teachers get the young students hooked on science by helping them explore their own interests.
“We basically had a circle in our classroom where we talked about, you know, putting ourselves out there and just exploring what we were interested in,” Erikson-Grant said. “And then we brought in an older student who presented her previous boards to us in what she had been interested in.”
That older student is part of the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program (ANSEP), which recently opened a campus in Bethel.
Once the older student showed off her project, the younger students started to see the possibilities.
“That got the kids excited. And from there, the kids started talking with each other, and their parents and myself, about what they could do, realistically, in our classroom with the resources we had,” Erickson-Grant said.
Fast forward to the weekend of the science fair, where five projects were awarded first place wins:
Primary (K-3) tied for first place from Gladys Jung Elementary School, Bethel
- Car Ramp by Kiarah Phillip, Peyton Gutshall, and Kassi Boyscout
- Forces by Tristan Evans, Matthias Gilila, and Tobias Graf
Upper Elementary from Gladys Jung Elementary School, Bethel
- Snacky Puppers by Cora Butte, Maya Iverson, and Stevie Greason
Junior High and Best In Show from Atmautluak
- Exercise and Heart Rate by Karley Pavilla and Adrianna Dull
Senior High from Kwethluk
- The Boba Project by Nick Evan
The wins mean that those projects get to move on to the state level. The Alaska Science and Engineering Fair is in late March in Anchorage.
“So as long as they’re eligible to go, we’re going to support them in making that next journey,” said Lower Kuskokwim School District Instructional Coach Whitney Spiehler. She is also the science fair coordinator.
Spiehler said that one goal of the science fair is to encourage students to ask questions and explore.
“It’s not having everything absolutely perfect. We want our students to be curious and not afraid to make mistakes,” Spiehler said.
But there are other rewards from the fair too.
“What makes the event special is seeing everything come to fruition. We were able to see all the boards on display, all the students in the flesh. I had great conversations with teachers. One of them, she's a first year teacher, just proud, just filled with pride and joy to see the work her students produced. And then they went on to win. And that's a big moment of victory for our teachers as much as it is for the students,” Spiehler said.
