Students were radiant Wednesday in the lecture hall at the Cambridge Public Library, bringing scientific concepts to life and the audience into their experiences as part of the second annual Science Story Slam, part of the year’s Cambridge Science Festival.
Topics ranged from circuitry, astrobiology and overcoming existential malaise via the concept of a Boltzmann brain – that our world is just a product of an entity’s imagination – among finalists Yuen May Chow, Montserrat Diaz, Eliana Goldenholz, Amishi Jain, Sirrye Pierre and Lily Swilling.
They incorporated elements such as personification, rhyme, pop culture references, body language, tone shifts, theatrics and video animations, a variety applauded by Kirsty Bennett, the event’s emcee and former producer at the storytelling radio program “The Moth.”
There were through lines between the stories: science, yes, but also overcoming external pressures in personal journeys through science, technology, engineering and math; reckoning with statistical, probabilistic and otherwise rational modes of moving through the world while connecting to other people; and imagining what curiosity might uncover next.
Diaz, a senior at Brockton High, won the $1,000 grand prize with her story “Digits of Pi,” which used a framework of memorizing pi to explore her passion for math and science sequentially through her life.
She overcame nervousness to win. “One thing that helped with the confidence was seeing people listen to me,” Diaz said. “I had captivated the audience and they wanted to hear the story. I really wanted them to see who I really was.”
The audience choice winner was “Fluctuating Firework,” by Eliana Goldenholz at Maimonides School in Brookline, which examined existential dread via the Boltzmann brain thought experiment and the song “Firework” by Katy Perry. There’s a misconception “that the world of storytelling and writing cannot overlap with the world of science,” Goldenholz said. “I disagree with this distinction – science needs writers, and writers need science.”
The runner-up story was “The Rise of Astro Agriculture” by Lily Swilling from Winchester High in Winchester, a video submission that recounted the history of and major discoveries in the field of astrobiology.
More than 50 students from across the country submitted stories; an initial round of judging based on strength of story, Stem accuracy and the blending of these components narrowed the pool to the six finalists – all of whom went home with some amount from the total $5,000 in cash prizes. Judges included a New York Times reporter, an MIT professor and two current biological engineering doctoral students at MIT.
The Science Story Slam is in its second year, again organized by Pawan Sinha, a professor of neuroscience at MIT, and Izzat Jarudi, chief executive of educational technology company Edifii, which tries to educate with insights from neuroscience and AI.
This year added a “Beat AI” event in which the same prompt was provided to students and an artificial intelligence application; the top story by a student – Sawyer VanZanten, from Davidson Academy in Las Vegas – and the story written by AI were performed on stage by Mia Ladolcetta, an undergrad at MIT studying mechanical engineering and theater. (Ladolcetta also served as the storytelling coach for the finalists, working with the students on performance aspects such as emphasis, tone and movement.)
After Ladolcetta performed both, judges and audience voted on which they thought was written by a human – and all judges and 66 percent of the audience chose correctly. (“One of the stories was written by a robot, and the other was about a robot,” a judge said.)
“People are interested in people. That’s what makes a story compelling,” Bennett said.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)3 nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.