{"id":196,"date":"2007-04-19T17:05:20","date_gmt":"2007-04-19T21:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=196"},"modified":"2008-08-05T12:46:03","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T16:46:03","slug":"perspective-on-science-fairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=196","title":{"rendered":"Perspective on science fairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve posted here before about stories lamenting the decline in science fair participation<\/a>. A retired professor has a different\u00c2\u00a0perspective on what’s going on at science fairs<\/a> and just how useful they are (or not).<\/p>\n

My experience has been that many of these competitions, like a lot of competitions among children, are often competitions among the children’s parents.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

I told the high school principal that I was all for kids doing science projects so that they could learn about the scientific method, and experience, in some small way, how what they read about in their books was discovered. But I was against competition, because it discouraged, and even embarrassed, those without resources. I suggested to the principal that the time and effort put into preparing science fair projects for a small number of students would be better used to raise the overall level of the science and mathematics curriculum, which I knew was weak. The principal suggested I look for another job.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

What we do have to worry about is the level of science knowledge of the average citizen with a high school or non-science college degree. People who are making decisions at the highest levels often don’t have a basic understanding of science (think George Bush), which not only makes them incapable of making sound decisions about scientific questions themselves, but also prevents them from being about to discern the difference between good and bad advice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Speaking of science fairs, my daughter in 8th grade is working on a science project. Unfortunately, she has been putting it off for lack of interest or motivation. For the longest time she had been casting about for a project that was at least moderately interesting. I enjoy science and so was feeling discouraged by the attitude she developed. She eventually just wanted to do something, anything, to get it all over with. Sigh.<\/p>\n

I helped look around for something that might appeal to her. Finally, I found something that put a little spark in her eyes. We have two cats that the entire family adores. There is an experiment that can be done to determine whether cats have dominant paws<\/a> like humans have dominant hands (think: is your cat left-pawed, right-pawed or not at all). It actually got her thinking and curious, which is what the science project is all about, after all! She can do science and play with cats. How cool is that? She’s still putting off doing some of the work … procrastination runs in the family … but at least she has some interest in the project whereas she didn’t before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve posted here before about stories lamenting the decline in science fair participation. A retired professor has a different\u00c2\u00a0perspective on what’s going on at science fairs and just how useful they are (or not). My experience has been that many … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-3a","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":883,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=883","url_meta":{"origin":196,"position":0},"title":"Science fairs and Olympiads roundup","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"South Brevard science fair: Why it matters Last year, science fair projects led to Brevard students winning more than $253,000 in cash awards, prizes and college scholarships at regional, state and international science fairs. Edison science and engineering fair: Samantha Prabakaran's experiment was no small feat. She worked last summer\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":163,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=163","url_meta":{"origin":196,"position":1},"title":"Another sad science fair story","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 23, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's yet another story lamenting the decline in science fair participation. It's good to see that some schools actually offer science project classes that kids apparently enjoy. But for the rest ... gotta prepare for the test, ya know! Science fairs used to be big deals -- competitions that exercised\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the Classroom"","block_context":{"text":"In the Classroom","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":155,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=155","url_meta":{"origin":196,"position":2},"title":"No time for science fairs?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"As I scan through the news looking for interesting tidbits for this blog, I commonly see quite\u00c2\u00a0a few articles about science fairs throughout the state. So, I had not idea that science fair participation for the upper grades is declining. TAMPA - While hundreds of students gathered Monday to show\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the Classroom"","block_context":{"text":"In the Classroom","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":820,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=820","url_meta":{"origin":196,"position":3},"title":"High School researchers","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Palm Beach County students radiate worms, look for oncogenes, even sell surfboards in pursuit of science. Though the county has a long tradition of its top students earning honors at state and international science fairs, projects on the whole are growing in scope and complexity. More students are spending their\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2287,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2287","url_meta":{"origin":196,"position":4},"title":"The Florida Foundation for Future Scientists Need Your Help","author":"Jonathan Smith","date":"April 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"As some of\u00c2\u00a0you may have heard during the State Science and Engineering Fair of Florida last week the\u00c2\u00a0FFFS\u00c2\u00a0has launched a funding campaign to raise money to continue the sponsorship of the SSEF. The FFFS is a statewide, non-profit organization authorized by the 1957 Legislature of the State of Florida to\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2287#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1248,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1248","url_meta":{"origin":196,"position":5},"title":"Science Project from HELL","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This is an interesting story about a mother, her child, a B, the child's teacher, a frazzled school official, and the science project from hell. For some families, it's a magical time. They bond, they learn. Parents can be involved in the teaching process, which strengthens the school community. ...\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}