I was disappointed that no one created a civilization in a tooth. (Science fair part I)

Last Thursday, I was invited to a local private school, in order to help judge their annual science fair. I was never really into these growing up, but I jumped at the chance to meet other postdocs in the community. Plus, I figured I could help encourage some young local science minds. I enjoyed science as a child, but never had much help coming up with good ideas. I think I only did two – as they were mandatory in the 4^th and 5^th grade – and neither was well thought out. One of them involved growing sweet potatoes in water under various colors of light bulbs. Mostly they just rotted. In the other, I constructed a maze in a shoe box and watched if a small viney plant could work its way through to the light opening at the end. Kinda cool, but no real experiment here – it either would or wouldn’t. Or in my case, it just died midway through.

Nevertheless, I had hope that the scientists of the future would have better luck. The entries were divided up into 5^th grade, Junior (6^th-8^th grades), and Senior (9^th-11^th) and further divided up by category. I took Behavioral and Social Science as it seemed that this was a reluctant category to judge. And soon I found out why. Doing a science project is mandatory. And if you don’t/can’t/shouldn’t do science, then you make your classmates fill out surveys and throw something together for the Behavioral and Social Science category. What effects do different types of music have on test taking? Not many. Does ESP work? Probably not. Hey, do you want to see all of this stuff I found on the internet about the Stroop test? Not particularly.

For the first year, students stood by their posters while the judges went around giving them scores on various categories. And for the most part, they weren’t that bad. My main problem is that, at least for the large surveys they conducted, the students didn’t extrapolate much good information from them. One guy in the Senior level collected a massive amount of surveys (~100) on other students’ sleep schedules. He thusly concluded that his fellow students woke up earlier on weekdays rather than weekends. Shocking. But he not only gathered information on waking time, but also what time students typically went to bed, and whether or not they felt rested during the day. It wouldn’t have been much more work to do a quick check to see what percentage of people who claim to be tired in class also go to bed after 2 AM. You know, something moderately interesting. After asking him about this, he just stared at me, confused.

But not all of them were bad. One student looked if different colored paper had any effect on the ability to take math tests. Another found that people are more likely to memorize an object with a smell if they are not related. For example, more people remembered the smell of chocolate associated with an iron than with a mug. My only guess is that the test subjects had to try harder. Basically, if you had a good idea and some kind of conclusion, you did pretty well.

To get a break from the sameness of the survey club, I also judged the Junior Environmental Science category. Beyond a girl that grew carrots in sand under different amounts of light (I had a soft spot in my heart for that one) and a guy that found info on biofuels on the internet and glued them to a board, not much was there. The winner, however, collected hundreds of cans on the side of the road and discovered that an overwhelming majority were from beer. In soda, a huge percentage was Mountain Dew and there was surprisingly little littered Diet drinks. This was an interesting idea that was missing just a few things to get a “Best of Show” prize.

So what I did get out of this day? Well, sore feet and a so-so lunch for one. But it was very refreshing to see kids that really got excited about their projects. Sometimes I get bogged down with my own, and I couldn’t help but get refueled by their enthusiasm. So what's next? Regionals. Powerpoint. This Thursday.

Expect Part II -- The Reckoning soon.