Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion A little rant ... science fair mentioned ...

This is totally trivial, but I am going to mention it here so I can say it and get it out and then move on lol!

Our ds' school held it's annual science fair yesterday, and they had outside folks come in to judge (I am so danged busy with life I have no idea who the judges were or how they were picked or what their qualifications were or anything).

Anyway, ds' did really well in terms of the judges' overall impressions, but he had this one comment on his rating form that really annoyed the heck out of me - this isn't a direct quote (since I don't have the paperwork in front of me at the moment) but it went something like this:

"Math used was above grade level. But (ds) could answer all of my questions."

It wasn't phrased in a "Way Cool! The math is advanced!" sort of way, more of a "This child is breaking the rules and using math above his grade level" sort of way. Well, duh, he's in math classes above his grade level.... which of course this judge who doesn't know him doesn't know... but is it beyond reason to think that hey, maybe some kids get math?

OK, I've ranted and I'm moving on!

polarbear

ps - he didn't have it on his poster, but he had his first opportunity to learn what a derivative is when he was working through some of the theory for his project (he's in 6th grade). Had I known he'd have a cranky judge who most likely isn't a math-brain, I'd have suggested he add a few derivatives to his poster! Yikes, I'm cranky today lol!

I'd take this comment as "Although the math used was above grade level, on questioning, the kid knew the math and so this likely isn't due to a parent or teacher doing the project for him, which is one of the things we look out for."

I agree.

Do you feel like he was penalized for the work appearing to be above grade level? We had that feel ourselves when dd11 was in 5th grade. There were a couple of very impressive projects and, knowing some of the kids who did them, I suspect that many of these kids were capable of doing the work themselves. However, the projects that won generally showed much more rudimentary understanding of math and science albeit work that was clearly at the capability level of a 5th grader. I wondered if the judges (other parents) felt like the very high level projects were not done by the children entirely.

I don't see anything wrong with a child asking for help on a science fair project in the form of something like, 'I don't know how I show that this group did better statistically, can you teach me how to do the math to show that?' I would see a problem with a kid saying, 'I don't know how to show that this group did better, can you calculate that for me and write up the proof.'

I did admittedly spend time with dd teaching her about correlation coefficients and what constituted statistical significance, but she did the work and put together her results herself. A project with a similar need for an understanding of correlation that won in her category simply stated that, b/c there were outliers in the data set (not the term the kiddo used), there was no way to tell if ___ related to ___, which is of course not true at all. Dd had outliers, too, but she still had statistical significance.

I do like that your school at least had the judges talk to the kids so they had some idea as to whether above level work appeared to be of the child's own doing or whether his/her parents did if for him. I hope that he did well and felt good about the experience.

I agree with aculady. I think it was actually a compliment, although awkwardly phrased.

I agree with aculady, too.

I don't think that science fair judges can be expected to know the level
of math or science that each contestant is enrolled in. If a project uses math that's well outside grade-level, it's reasonable to expect that a responsible judge will make sure that a student understands it.

I want to think that it was simply an awkward complement or just a note that he did understand it but there was something about the way it was phrased that just didn't sound like that - I think it was more what cricket asked, it felt like he was being criticized for doing something above his grade level, taken in context with the rest of the comments. It's really just a little thing, and usually I'm an *extremely* mellow mom about this type of stuff and would never even have noticed it. I've also been a science fair judge for years...so I know that there's no way a judge would have a clue what level of math a student is capable of and would ask questions to see if the student understood the project etc... which is why I just thought the comment was a little odd - how would she know what grade level to expect him to be at? I'm not even sure that in the context of this small school fair she'd know what grade level he's at... which really might be where it's coming from... he's really tiny for his grade level, and most of the kids at the fair were in lower grades, so maybe she thought he was younger than he is.

Anyway, it's not a biggie. The "judges" were just there to listen to presentations and give feedback to the kids - there weren't any awards or anything, everyone who participated got a certificate and a copy of the feedback from the judges. DS' feedback overall was very positive, but he himself thought the "above grade level" remark was a little odd.

polarbear

Well certainly polarbear you are one of the most mellow posters!

Since you are mellow and seem to be very non-judgemental (trying to be balanced, looking at all sides) and also have experience being a science fair judge, I'd guess that if you think there is something off about the comment, then there is. Is there actually a stated rule that says they have to stay in their level for the math they use? Is this person just being super-exact and feels the need to find something to say?

What to do about it, I don't know except maybe if you're in that frame of mind, satisfy your curiosity to find out more about the judge. Don't know much about science fairs (sorry, sounds like a song) so I don't know if a name is associated with a comment.