Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Science Fairs - do you hate them or you love them?

It is Science Fair season full swing.
Wanted to know your opinions about the subject.
Is it a BEAST in your house, or a FAIRY?
What problems did your kids tackle this year?
Do you see advantages in it?

I LOVE the experiment part of it but HATE the work that goes into display. My kids are naturally good presenters, and they both really, really like doing that!
Last night we all went to bed well after midnight, trying to finish up the last glitches. They both did very well.
Please do share your perspective:-)
Ania

No science fair this year for us (unless it just hasn't been assigned yet) other than elementary level. We have a first year teacher for middle school who devoted herself entirely to coaching science olympiad team. She has a lot of energy and enthusiasm and wants to start a science club in April.

Our science teacher last year did a really great job with science fair. The projects were soooo interesting and independently done. There is no city-wide fair.

In elementary school, the kids are required to participate in the science fair BUT there are no prizes. They're so worried that self esteem will be devastated...or something?

Ania-

I hope your kids do well. We enjoy the annual science fair here, but it is non-competitive and the homeschoolers who participate range from three year olds putting out their dinosaur collection to teens who have sheep's brains and other body parts on display with elaborate hypotheses. It's really cool that each child can do their own thing and make it as complex or as basic as they like.

Last year, my school age kids did a fish breeding experiment. The first batch of breeders died though, and the replacements didn't give birth before the fair! We had a big question mark on the board where the results were supposed to go!

Hate it!!!!!!
We love doing all our science in the safety of our own home.
A small child or meek adult could easily get trampled at one of those things.
Besides, I don't care what the other PARENTS know about science.



I

Excessive parental involvement and store bought kits are not downgrades at our school science fair. This year, there were no student oral presentations and the projects were judged by select parents. Surveys and consumer reports have fared quite well in past years, but were banned by the science teachers this year. Well decorated boards are always a hit. As best I can tell, a pretty and straight forward demonstration of the scientific method is the objective.

DS built a water turbine and a generator from scratch. He measured the level of electricity produced at three points of the different shaped channels he created by fastening siding to a gigantic sheet of wood in various configurations. He did earn a first, so he gets to compete in the next level science fair, which again, has no student presentation.

Last year, DD bred Brine shrimp in different concentrations of salt water over the course of four weeks, while taking very detailed notes each day. This year, she adjusted her effort to meet the task. She tested whether students do better or worse on a complicated maze after consuming caffeine. She earned a respectable second, out of the proportionate first-fourth place awards and the additional dreaded category of �honorable mention�.

I judged once and a girl was about 2nd grade, she did a very nice project about galileo thermometer, but when asked why this subject she answered "I don't know, dad bought it" :-)

I wrote before that I really enjoy the experiment part of it. I even kind of like the tension my kids have when things are not going the way they thought (mean mom :-) I think that they learn tons. Putting up a display board - hate it! My kids generally are finished with the experiment way before the projects are due and they procrastinate terribly with the display. Ghost has been on his own with producing a display (we still help with glue and give advice on how to arrange it so it will "catch the eye" so to speak), but it was the first year DD was on her own. She did not even think twice, went to the basement, dug out last years display and used the same lettering :-) But of course, due to the unforseen printer trouble, I still had to drive DS to Kinkos at 9:30 at night!

DD's problem this year - do ants built the same tunnels over and over again or are they different each time. (no personal reason to think of at all :-)
DS's problem - what is the best Angle of Attack for lifting the most weight. He had a difficult time writing it out in laymans therm - one of the criteria was that mom had to understand what he was talking about :-). Huge personal interest in this one and I hope that it showed.

In our school there are two teams of judges judging each project.
The first team conducts an interview with the contestant, the second team judges the experiment based on the clarity of the display board. The second team of judges generally gives way lower scores. It is a challenge to explain your project with clarity yet some depth:-)
Oh, and the school uses parent volunteers to tally numbers only. They invite engineers from local companies to serve as judges.

I love this, Ania! Mistakes and surprises are what science is all about.

You're not a mean mom, you're a smart one!

Can my kids join that science fair? I have a kindergarten paleontologist who'd love to show off his dinosaur collection and the fossils we find at a couple local fossiliferous beaches.

One aspect of science fairs that really bothers me is the proliferation of books with titles like "The Complete Handbook of Science Fair Projects." I'm a scientist and I see science fairs as being pretty pointless if the kid doesn't think up a question on his own and then try to answer it through experimentation --- even if it's just something small. Anything else seems to miss the point from my perspective.

If the fairs were non-competitive, the kids would probably feel a lot freer to use their imaginations.

Val

Ditto what you said Val.

If I lived by Lorel, perhaps I would not be afraid to go to the science fair!

Incog

Ugh, the science fair letter came home this week. DS really wants to participate and came up with his own concept. However, he is going to need some guidance from Mom and Dad and I'm not sure how much help to provide. I don't want to stage manage, but I also know my child will have alot of trouble keeping a narrow focus without our help.

His question is Why can't salt water fish live in fresh water? This is a really big area of interest for him. He has always had a huge interest in fish and marine life. He has done some research on the web and at the library. He now thinks that the best way to approach it would be to show how salt and fresh water are different.

Would it be reasonable since we do not live near the ocean to try to make salt water from aquarium supplies and then do things like freeze and boil the different waters? I still don't see how that will answer the why part of his question. Seems like to great an assumption to me. His research has told him that it has to do with the salt levels needed by the fish and the salt levels in the environment.

In a macrabre way, his question would be much easier to test and prove if it was Can a salt water fish live in fresh water? :P

It IS nice when kids can explore interests without the competitive stuff overshadowing everything. What fun is science without the mistakes? DS got a cool book several years ago called, "Mistakes that Worked". It's a great read both for young perfectionists and out-of-the-box thinkers.

elh0706, send me a pm and I can hook you up with email to DH's best friend. He has his Ph.d. in a rather esoteric branch of marine biology and we lovingly call him, "the fish guy". He has helped my kids and their various science groups with all sorts of projects and I think he'd be happy to email back and forth to your son a bit.

take care-

I love Ms. Frizzle's perspective "Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!"

Several years ago I worked on a NASA history project and interviewed several important men who participated in the early space program. One nugget that has always stayed with me was from an engineer who was said that it is important to have the freedom to make mistakes because we learn much more from our mistakes than from occassions when we get all the answers right.

TS, thanks for reminding me about Ms. Frizzle. I think my youngest would love MSB- I'll have to look for our old books.

That NASA history project sounds really fun! What did you do with your research?

It is part of the NASA history website.

http://www11.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/oral_histories.htm

A great example of the project is the audio documentary "Apollo 8: Earth's Rise to a New Era" near the bottom of the page. It is about 5 minutes long.

Ooh! Very cool! I bookmarked it for future reference.

thanks!

Hi, usual lurker here but I did start a thread about a month or so ago. Anyway, my girls (K and 1st grader) did not want to do a science project so we skipped it this year. I did walk through the exhibits, though, and could only find about 6 out of over 100 projects that looked like they had been completed by the child. I overheard a group of Dads discussing their "kids" projects and how long it had taken them (the Dads) to put it all together.

Really, I just don't see the point of a science fair if Johnny goes to bed at 8PM and daddy stays up late to get it ready for the contest.

I guess I am more of a process than a product type of learner but I just don't see the point of parents living vicariously through their kids by competing in their child's science fair.

If my kids do want to compete next year, it's fine with me. But their projects will look like they were completed by a 7 year old, because they will be.

I don't feel strongly about this subject though, really I don't ;-).

Around here, science fairs are optional for 4th grade and required for grades 5th through 8th. Seven years old seems awfully young for this type of competition. I do have memories of the Boy Scout car derby and 1st grade dioramas to reference for your comments of products that are obviously not the work of the child!

Our area/county science fair was held yesterday. DS won the Best of 6th Grade, Engineering trophy and a $100 savings bond! We met one of the judges, a full time engineer and a part time college instructor, who told us that DS�s project was among the first they honed in on. DS is trilled. I hope his teachers will contact the regional science fair managers in time for entry since DS is talking about �nationals� LOL!

Yeah for delbows' DS! Glad to hear DS is trilled, Mon! (LOL, sorry for making fun of your typo. I am punchy from lack of sleep!)

BTW, I have been meaning to ask, is delbows a handle derived from Catherine's English in Henry V?

I know what you mean about the parent participation. It drives me crazy! The Pinewood derby in our area has been won by the most inept kids some years- boys who look like they can barely dress themselves, for Pete's sake.

Girl Scouts participation has been wonderful for my daughter, but we didn�t re-enroll DS again after the pinewood derby event because we were literally dumbfounded by the overt competition amongst the dads. Poor DS showed up with a block of wood with wheels that he had painted with almost every color ending with a murky purple-black. The other kids had aerodynamically designed cars sporting very detailed painted designs. We watched a few dads insist on positioning the car for their son�s to �launch� and getting angry with them if it weren�t executed to their specifications.

My handle is not that creative and I�m not that well--read!

Oh delbows--That is great. You and DS must be very proud!!!

How long did DS spend on it? what did he do?

Brag away!!!

Thanks acs! I am proud of DS because he poured his heart into this project for at least two months after he decided which of his three (original) ideas to go with. They all sounded too complex to me (and to his teacher).

He built a hydro turbine and a generator to measure the amount of electricity produced by different shaped water channels. His hypothesis, based on Pascal�s Law, PRESSURE=FORCE/AREA, turned out to be incorrect. The results demonstrated Bernoulli�s Principle which states that a fluid must exit a narrow area at the same speed that it entered.

No one would ever accuse me of having �done� this project for him. DH did supervise the use of power tools and guided him throughout, as well as, dumped the 5 gallon buckets of water through the channels. However, the project was conceived, driven and produced by DS.

I finally found the link for the big regional competition which is next Sat. Bummer, registration deadline was this past Friday and had to be initiated by the school.

That's amazing delbows! You should be very proud.

Cool project!

DS State S.F. is today. Very close to the house, so I am the official "lunch" mom, delivering orders:-)

My son's project will probably be viewed as "too complicated for age". Last year a very simplistic ones , or the ones bought from the internet won. It doesn't always pay to be smart:-)

I hope your son does well despite being too smart!

DH managed to get DS entered in the big regional science fair this weekend.

DS has attended a few physics classes at the university were the science fair will take place over the last couple of years. Last spring, he sat in on a class covering Pascal�s Law which became the catalyst for his project. He intended to write a note to let the professor know how inspired he was by his class. Maybe he will get to thank him in person this weekend!

DS did very well "despite being too smart" - it sounds bad, but I hope you all understand what I mean :-)
He got 3rd place in his division (math/physics)along with $10 cash and a $100 scholarship to the local U (LOL), but then he took first prize from the Air Force something Fundation , and it was $100 cash. He was extatic, as he is saving every penny for a camera - remember?, movie making is his next craze!

Congrats to Ania and Delbows and families.
Isn't it the greatest thrill to see your child construct the idea on THEIR OWN and be successful with it?
I love that.

I

Ania, your DS did great in a STATE competition!

Yes, congratulations to the both of you and your kiddos. It's great to see that the internet and availability of resources (like the science fair kits) hasn't ruined the creativity and individuality of the projects for everyone. It gives me hope that one of my favorite things from my school experience hasn't been completely ruined.

Will your kids be available for tutoring in about four years?