Science Fair

A few weeks ago we held a science fair at McMurdo, which was probably one of the less geeky science fairs ever conducted. Also, one of the least scientific. First, it was held in the bar. Second, it featured posters less sophisticated than those probably made by current-day third graders, and these were all made by grown adults.

Third, the topics were ridiculous. I was recruited to do a poster, which I initially dismissed as a possibility, until I was told that at the last science fair at McMurdo, one of the projects was called "Why is Ben Affleck Sad?" and consisted of nothing except a poster collage of pictures of Ben Affleck looking sad. Once I heard that, I thought: Okay, I can do this.

I upped that game a little bit and did a faux statistical study of the loitering behavior of McMurdoans and the station store. A topic with which I am very familiar. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I've actively encouraged a loitering culture at the store here, because it makes my job way more interesting and fun. And it's taken on a life of it's own for sure. There's one woman down here who sits in one particular chair near the register for the entirety of nearly every store shift, to the extent that when she's not there people ask me where she is with genuine concern, and other times people will try to beat her to the store and take that chair just to see what she'll do. (Note: What she does is literally drag and throw the interloper out of the chair. It's a sight.) So there was a question on the survey about the owner of that chair. A question about why people loiter, another about whether as loiterers they judge customers' purchases, a question about whether anyone has a crush on a fellow loiterer, and so on. And then I put it all together in a poster that may not have been the most scientific of the fair, but which was definitely the most colorful.

All in all it was such a fun night, a combination of silly and serious. Other projects looked at how many people knew each other on station and whose social circles overlapped the most, what names were most common on station, whether employee retention was greater when dishwashers and janitors were a combined job rather than two separate roles, and so on.

We even had a demo of making sorbet using liquid nitrogen. It was tasty!

I didn't imagine that a Science Fair would end up being such a fun event here, but it truly was.