Promoting Science, and Google, to Students
Promoting Science, and Google, to Students
Google is synonymous with “search engine,” and now, for students, it wants to be synonymous with “science.”
The company is getting into the science fair business with its first Google Science Fair, a global competition for teenagers that spans sciences as diverse as computer engineering, space exploration and medical technology.
The event does not have the name recognition and deep roots of the science fairs from companies like Intel or Siemens, but for most children, Google is the most familiar company of the three. With the science fair, Google aims to play an even bigger role in their lives by encouraging young scientists to experiment — and to use Google products while they’re at it.
Google’s science fair is different from the others in a major way: entrants submit their projects online, using Google products like Gmail, YouTube and Google Docs and Sites. It’s the modern-day version of showing up at the school gymnasium to demonstrate lava-spewing volcanoes or bacteria colonies in petri dishes.
The goal, Google said, is for students to be able to enter even if they live too far from a science fair or if their schools lack the resources to travel to the most prestigious fairs.
“The science fairs of today have not changed much in years — they’re still in gymnasiums with cardboard and glue,” said Tom Oliveri, a Google spokesman for the science fair. “So we can use the Web to reach a lot more students.”
More than 10,000 students from 91 countries entered the science fair, which was Google’s first. The entries, submitted over the Web, were winnowed down to 60 semifinalists and then 15 finalists who presented their findings to judges at Google’s Silicon Valley headquarters last week.
Google winners will receive a trip to Google’s research lab in Zurich, a trip to the Galápagos with National Geographic, three days with astrophysicists at the CERN lab in Geneva or an internship at Lego.
Please read the detail report of Google's First Science Fair competition which has been published in Newyork Times recently on the following link.
We hope that this will give a new insight to all our science teaher friends to plan for the up-coming science exhibitions at various stages.
GUJARAT SCIENCE CITY
Capturing New Heights in Science Literacy!
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