The Science Fair Volcano Ban
INDIA9SHORT STORY
Priyanka
8/4/20251 min read
Priyanka’s school banned volcanoes from the science fair.
The announcement appeared in bold letters:
NO BAKING-SODA VOLCANOES. NO EXCEPTIONS.
Priyanka felt this was unfair. She had already built a mountain from cardboard and painted realistic grey rocks along the sides.
“You could study something else,” her father suggested.
“But I like eruptions.”
“Then study real ones.”
Priyanka began reading about volcanic ash. She learned that ash could travel far from an eruption and affect breathing, crops, aeroplanes, and water supplies.
She decided to test which homemade face covering blocked the most fine particles.
Her mother refused to let her use actual ash, so Priyanka substituted coloured flour. She built a clear testing box from an old storage container. At one end, a small fan blew flour toward pieces of fabric. At the other end, white paper showed how much passed through.
Priyanka tested cotton, a scarf, two layers of cotton, and a piece cut from an old reusable shopping bag.
Her first experiment failed because flour escaped through the lid and covered the dining table.
Her second failed because the fan was too powerful and blew every fabric sample loose.
During the third attempt, the cat jumped onto the chair, knocked over the flour container, and walked through the kitchen leaving blue paw prints.
Priyanka wrote each failure in her project notebook.
“Do I have to include the cat?” she asked her teacher.
“If the cat affected the procedure, yes.”
By science-fair morning, Priyanka’s original cardboard volcano stood beside her display, but it no longer erupted. Instead, she had cut it open to show how ash spread through the air.
The judges asked why she had chosen the project.
“Because volcanoes were banned,” Priyanka said honestly.
One judge laughed.
Priyanka did not win first place. She received a special award for experimental design.
Afterward, her teacher asked whether she still wished the school had allowed ordinary volcano models.
Priyanka looked at the blue paw print she had taped into her notebook as “unexpected contamination.”
“Maybe not,” she said.
The ban had ruined her first idea.
It had also forced her to discover a better question.