Soap Carving Contest

It can be fun to run a creativity contest for your students. You will be impressed with the creative ingenuity students display as they let their imaginations run wild with innovative thinking.

Before conducting any creativity contests, you might want to engage students in a discussion of creativity by posing some questions. For example, how does one define the word creative? How does one know if one has been creative? Are there any unique characteristics of the so-called creative individual? Are there any ways in which one can become more creative?

As an incentive, you might wish to award extra credit to contest winners while awarding less extra credit to all contest participants.

Soap Carving:

1. Two large bars of soap (Ivory® brand works well due to its soft consistency) are used by each team of two students.
2. The teams are instructed to have one member carve a bar of soap into an object that will complement the object carved by the other member. For example, one member might carve a television set while the other member carves a VCR to go with it. One member might carve a shoe while the other member carves a foot to fit the shoe. A carved car might go with a carved trailer. The more imaginative and unique the creation, the better.
3. At the conclusion of the activity, another class judges the creations.

A Soap Carving Creativity Contest outlines the specific instructions for the contest.

• Distribute copies to student participants a few days in advance of the activity.
• This will allow the students time to develop some creative ideas.

The Form for Judging outlines the specific instructions for judging.

• Distribute it to the judges selected from another class.
• After judging has been completed, add up the total rating scores for each entry.
• Barring a runoff in the event of a tie, the team with the highest score is the winner.
• After announcing the winner, discuss with your students the criteria listed by the judges that influenced their rating of the entries.
• The main point the students should understand is that the judging of any contest of this nature is highly subjective. In other words, when it comes to judging creativity, it is extremely difficult for people to agree on just what makes something creative.

Excerpted from Biology Teacher's Survival Guide.