Admittedly the school we went through is a high income area school, lots of scientists, this woman's kids both did projects that required expensive, esoteric, hard to come by scientific equipment, and so on, but at 3rd grade there is nothing to be gained, no further steps, the county fair is it.
Welcome to how "science" is done today. If you do not have a PHD then no matter how good your work is, you are at best a "naturalist." If you do not have a multimillion dollar budget and grants that bring in money to support the huge infrastructure, then you are ignored.
These people think the money and infrastructure and connections automatically mean success and it infuriates them when they get poked in the eye by some bumpkin they never heard of.
There is not much you could have done better when faced with the venality you described.
I'd support your kids and come back the next year with another entry.
I'd also look up the AMC8/10/12 tests and aim to do well on those if your kids want a STEM career.
That is very difficult, Wyldkat. I think it really dpends on the individual kd, but i would lean towards explaining things, at least in some filtered way.
I agree with this. We are direct to Mr W about most things like this. He is extremely perceptive and notices anyway. We do not want him to develop the wrong idea about things. Back when most people grew up on a farm, life and death and power struggles were played out among the farm animals and in nature and kids learned early. We tend to try to protect kids these days.
