Math Fair @ the MOA

      This week our class attended a math fair at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) on the UBC campus.  The students who designed the exhibits were sixth graders working in pairs from West Point Grey Academy, a K-12 private school in Vancouver.  Their class had visited the MOA a few weeks earlier to gain inspiration (many entries were based loosely on real exhibits).
      Since I was only able to stay for 45 minutes or so, (I had a class at Scarfe immediately after this one) I was only able to visit a few student exhibits.  The first one was based on Aboriginal canoe carving: you and a partner take turns carving either one or two canoes per turn, given a set number to start with - the person who ends up carving the special (last) canoe is declared the winner.  The students read us an interesting back story on prepared cue cards and even provided us with variants of the game (e.g. the special canoe has termites so the winner must avoid carving it) and hints/tips to winning.  The second exhibit was based on the mythological hydra where you played a hunter who had to destroy a creature with three heads and three bodies with your sword (the heads can live independently of the bodies and vice-versa).  The trouble was that if you destroyed a body then two heads would grow in its place, if you destroyed a head then a body would grow in its place, etc...  Again, the students were very well-prepared and had a few of their worked solutions available (hidden) and some hints (also hidden) for those who were stuck.  They even had prizes for guests who were able to solve the puzzle without resorting to hints!   The final entry had visitors develop a strategy for determining which (indistinguishable) paper maché cabbage weighed more than the other eight - there were nine in total.  The challenge here was that you weren't allowed to touch the cabbages and you were only allowed to use the balance beam scale twice.        
      Overall, I was very impressed with the amount of research the elementary school students performed, how well they each knew their topic, and how well they all conducted themselves in front of people twice their age.