On April 29th last, five of our grade 7 students and two of their teachers travelled to Phnom Penh for the 13th annual STEM Cambodia festival. STEM, which is an acronym for Science, Technol-ogy, Engineering and Maths is a festival of exhibits from students in secondary schools and uni-versities around the country. It is a fantastic opportunity to see a huge range of experiments with explanations in both English and Khmer.
When we arrived at the exhibition, the hall was a hive of activity. Each science exhibit allowed the students to try out the experiment for themselves. Our students were very shy to begin with but once they could see the fun that other students were having by having a go, they thoroughly en-joyed the unique opportunity. They experimented with interactive technology, watched with awe as demonstrators used simple ingredients to perform ‘fire breathing’ and they saw the damaging affects of cigarettes on a real set of lungs.
On Sunday morning we visited the Royal Palace and spent sometime exploring the many exquis-ite buildings, before heading back on the road to Sisophon.
Overall the trip was a great learning experience for the students and an important precedent for Xavier Jesuit school in encouraging Khmer students to see the value of science in action. Miss Aoife and Miss Kimsear were very proud of how the students represented the school at all times on the trip. A big thank you to Miss Kimsear for her help with the trip.