Comments on: Science Unfair

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:35:50 +0000

I wish this were an insightful, witty comment, but it isn't. Only wishing to inform you that I misread What do colas and other liquids do to teeth? as What do koalas and other liquids do to teeth? Can you imagine a liquid koala? That would be horrible.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 00:16:35 +0000

Alice, to be fair to the judges, that sounds less like complaints about the science and more like complaints about the presentation. I’m guessing the judges were given blanket rules about how data were to be presented to make things easier.

Do you know of competitions other than local science fairs? My son will eventually be doing science for science fairs, and I’d like to know what options we have.

By: Alice

Alice — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 14:53:17 +0000

I am a scientist who just finished working with my son and two next door students for district science fair. I was utterly amazed at what rules have turned science fair into now a days. Since I am a scientist, I trained my son and two other students to use bound lab notebooks. One set of judges told my son that his fingerprint mounting cards could not be in his labnotebook since they constituted experimental evidence and that only pictures could be put into his lab notebook. His fingerprint mounting cards were raw data. They judged his graphs (double Y -axis) not necessary since he was focusing on the quality of Latent prints and the fuming chamber environmental parameters did not count. What has happen to science? I was training these young men to do science and record in a professional manner and these public school teacher did not understand the project. Real professional in the latent prints field understood it? We will not be competing in this competition again but compete in a competition that values real science research.

By: jasper

jasper — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 18:19:01 +0000

I need more ideas for my science fair project.

By: John

John — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 02:41:25 +0000

What was the science experiment?
This student rationalized from some data that she/he did not generate?
You can not tell me that poor reasoning, not logic, is an experiment!!

Was data collected / documented??

A hypothesis – answered, not proven, by conclusion is not scientific.
Yes I do judge science fairs.

By: Where’s Jar-Jar? at Another Blasted Weblog

Where’s Jar-Jar? at Another Blasted Weblog — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 22:36:48 +0000

[...] Science unfair [...]

By: NOTR

NOTR — Tue, 09 May 2006 22:54:29 +0000

This is the stuff that lead to anyone seriously considering “intelligent design” as anything more than another reach of faith.

Ain’t no scientific method in ID, just lots of hope and mysticism.

By: Pop

Pop — Mon, 01 May 2006 14:36:50 +0000

In line with comments by Shumit, Russ, and particularly Tim Fuller:
Unlike Stephen, I’ve been a science fair judge at the regional level (admittedly in social science, but the rules were universal to the event). Part of the problem exemplified by this travesty lies with teachers, part with judges, and part with rules.
1st, if a student–or teacher for a student–enters wisely, that student is virtually guaranteed advancement regardless of the project’s value. The top three entries in a division or subset WILL advance. If competition doesn’t appear, by default the one, two, or three entries in that group WILL advance regardless of value.
2nd, the goal, particularly with honorable mentions, is to foster the sense of self-worth/self-esteem, the inculcation of which is very high on the agenda of current education (public or private is immaterial; the teachers have the same training). To paraphrase Yoda, “There is no fail, there is only do.” Well, do and praise.
3rd, general science education (including social science) focuses on content and does a poor job of inculcating in students a sense of what science (natural or social) is and how it differs from other disciplines: What questions does it ask, how does it do so, what information illuminates possible answers, and how should that information be evaluated?
4th, education is a cultural artifact. Science fairs are part of that cultural milieu and, like all education, reflect the much-balleyhooed “culture wars.” As long as we remain a nation in which religion (in its broadest sense) is presented as antagonistic to and therefore trumps science as a belief system, and as long as we remain a nation in which politicians (religious and secular) play to people’s prejudices and emotions (ie, demagogue issues) rather than to their “better angels,” science will always have to “try harder” to make itself heard against competition in the marketplace of ideas.

By: Joyous

Joyous — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 23:05:09 +0000

*grin* To me this is a reason for us TO homeschool–there’s far too much of this kind of cr*p going on in public schools. But yeah, our reasons are a bit different from most–this homeschooling thing sure does make for strange bedfellows.

By: Tim Fuller

Tim Fuller — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 19:14:19 +0000

Nobody can fault the kid, but I fault the judges. The tragedy that I see is that some other kid didn’t qualify (assuming there’s a fixed number that get approved) because this kid’s pseudoscience project gets green lighted.

Enjoy.