Science projects

In the United States, we concentrate on critical thinking - explaining answers and showing understanding. In Turkey, they do this also, but in two of the schools I have visited, they are also pushing for creativity to a higher level.

Example - two of the high schools I have visited promote science projects. These schools compete internationally and have placed consistently in the top 5. In the school I visited today, ALL students are expected to complete a project. These are no ordinary science projects - the ones I saw today included the development of a pillow that stops snoring, a wheelchair that goes upstairs (that placed second internationally), and the project that took the world prize involved taking used tires and putting them into walls of homes to prevent destruction from earthquakes. Not only do the students have to come up with the idea, but they spend years developing it and making it happen!

Here is the young student who developed the wheelchair that goes upstairs (we saw him demonstrate this), posing next to his award.

Here is the math teacher showing us some of the posters of the projects that students completed. The one on the far left dealt with Alzheimers.