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Science Fairs Aren't So Fair

theatlantic.com

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Re: Science Fairs Aren't So Fair

#61

Post by learc83 »

wyager wrote: post #8

I did a lot of science fairs in high school. I was pretty good at it, too; I'm currently paying for college with the help of some military research scholarships I won at an international science fair. Here's my perspective on the whole thing. Take it as you will. At the regional science fairs (where everyone starts out), there are a lot of people there who are only doing it because they have to. Usually, their high s…

I went to the state science fair years ago in 8th grade, and nearly every single person I met there had a parent who was heavily involved in their project.

You could tell what each kids parent did from a living just by looking at the posters. The CS project kids had parents who were programmers, the kids with engineering projects had parents who were engineers etc...

Re: Science Fairs Aren't So Fair

#62

Post by learc83 »

I remember what I learned from going to the state science fair in middle school:

how to fabricate results when the testing apparatus you built isn't sensitive enough to actually conduct the experiment.

I think science fairs could be greatly improved if they were more accepting of failed experiments.

Re: Science Fairs Aren't So Fair

#63

Post by nhaehnle »

zo1 wrote: post #47
timr wrote: post #3

I've been disgusted for years by the parade of "winners" of the major science fairs, most of whom have privileged access to research labs, wealth, or both. Because, protip: no high school student can do graduate-level scientific research. When you see that, it means that the student had special access to a lab that was already doing the work. And yet, year after year, these folks are given lucrative scholarships and…

"It's just one more example of the perpetuation of wealth across generations." You say that as if it's a bad thing. The thing you seem to be complaining about is one of the wonderful things about parenting. I.e. to impart/share/teach/give what you have accumulated over your life. Whether that is something physical, or intangible such as knowledge, makes no difference.

Your comment only contains a very individualistic perspective. Sure, it's a great experience to share some of what you have accumulated over your life, for you personally and for your children.

That doesn't mean that it's a purely good thing for society. It is the societal perspective that timr most likely had in mind.

Re: Science Fairs Aren't So Fair

#64

Post by qiqing »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #6

Wow a lot of parental angst there. Lets take a paragraph out of that which summarizes this: "Last year my son, who was in third grade at the time, came home with a sheet of paper from his school that listed three categories for appropriate projects: developing a hypothesis and conducting an experiment to test that theory, inventing something new, or researching 'something specific.' The guidelines listed 'whales' as…

I also contest the author's estimate of what 8 year olds are capable of, having very clear memories of being that age myself, and generally always being underestimated by adults. Some of whom sounded like this one.

Luckily that set of adults did not include my own parents, who thought it would be fun to have a full encyclopedia at home, and I got pulled in by it no less than Wikipedia sometimes pulls me in, in adulthood.

Re: Science Fairs Aren't So Fair

#65

Post by joshontheweb »

I remember science fairs. I definitely had help from my parents and/or my partners parents. I don't think we ever won anything more than an honorable mention but the experience was really great. One time we did a soil erosion study looking at what kind of tiered mounds would erode less. The second one I forgot what the hypothesis was, but it got me and a friend to study blood and come to an understanding of clotting via platelets. My friends mom was a nurse and had us into the hospital to use the microscopes and take microscopic pictures of blood. The most fun was building an electric motor with my dad (RIP) out of nails and copper wire. I think the test was to see what manners of winding the wire would produce a faster motor. Nothing ground breaking. I'm sure we could have found the answers through study and not testing but it sure helped me grasp the concepts better. These were all elementary school projects and pretty rudimentary but it taught me that you are able to figure things out on your own. You don't necessarily need someone else to do it for you. Not an argument with the article really, just my own experience.

Re: Science Fairs Aren't So Fair

#66

Post by onion2k »

zo1 wrote: post #47
timr wrote: post #3

I've been disgusted for years by the parade of "winners" of the major science fairs, most of whom have privileged access to research labs, wealth, or both. Because, protip: no high school student can do graduate-level scientific research. When you see that, it means that the student had special access to a lab that was already doing the work. And yet, year after year, these folks are given lucrative scholarships and…

"It's just one more example of the perpetuation of wealth across generations." You say that as if it's a bad thing. The thing you seem to be complaining about is one of the wonderful things about parenting. I.e. to impart/share/teach/give what you have accumulated over your life. Whether that is something physical, or intangible such as knowledge, makes no difference.

The question is where that line is drawn. Is it really reasonable to hinder the progression of society to maintain your and your children's enjoyment of being in the elite?

A thought experiment: If Bill Gates decided to recruit the top 10,000 maths teachers in the world and shutter them away in a warehouse to perfect the ideal maths lessons solely for his children, would just be "one of the wonderful things about parenting"?

Re: Science Fairs Aren't So Fair

#67

Post by robmcm »

pcrh wrote: post #24
wyager wrote: post #8

I did a lot of science fairs in high school. I was pretty good at it, too; I'm currently paying for college with the help of some military research scholarships I won at an international science fair. Here's my perspective on the whole thing. Take it as you will. At the regional science fairs (where everyone starts out), there are a lot of people there who are only doing it because they have to. Usually, their high s…

>it's much harder for judges to sniff out people who didn't do original work in the biological sciences category This applies to biological research all this way up the chain, including research done at top Universities, and by "top men".

Perhaps we should only fund the women then.

Re: Science Fairs Aren't So Fair

#68

Post by aethertap »

timr wrote: post #3

I've been disgusted for years by the parade of "winners" of the major science fairs, most of whom have privileged access to research labs, wealth, or both. Because, protip: no high school student can do graduate-level scientific research. When you see that, it means that the student had special access to a lab that was already doing the work. And yet, year after year, these folks are given lucrative scholarships and…

Let me give you my perspective as a parent who fully intends to give every possible educational boost to his child.

I have a job, and lots of other obligations. Quite frankly, I don't really care if she wins the science fair or not. I suspect that if she decides to compete when the time comes, she'll have a good shot at it just because of the level of effort we put into education and the equipment we have around the house. The majority of my free time and money is spent on this, so we have a lot of unusual stuff.

It's easy to put that kind of effort into your own kids, because they live with you. They're around for all of your spare moments, and they can use equipment you have access to that demands close supervision. Now here's the part that's relevant to your comment - I'm also heavily involved in her school, trying to do as much as I can for all of the other kids who are interested (the topics are computer science, math, and robotics). I get to spend maybe two hours a week working on that, after my other obligations are taken care of. It's simply not possible for me to do more for the school, and even if I could the problem is concentration of resources. Given a certain budget (time and money) that I have available for this project, it's obvious that I can make a large difference for a small number of kids, or a small (forgettable) difference for a large number. Taken to the extreme, I can make an enormous difference for one kid (mine). No matter what I try to do, I'll never be able to make that kind of difference for even a small classroom full of kids, and certainly not a whole school. So I'm left with this choice: Do I spend my resources in a pursuit that's likely to be ultimately fruitless (i.e. trying to "raise all boats"), or do I spend it on something I have a very high chance of success with? Which of those is more wasteful? My answer is that I do the best I can for the school, but I feel no guilt about giving more to my own kids.

In the end, if my daughter ends up winning a science fair it's going to look exactly like a case of inherited privilege, and maybe that's what it is. That's not because I'm trying to hold down everyone else though, it's just a simple matter of logistics. If I could give that kind of boost to everyone, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Re: Science Fairs Aren't So Fair

#69

Post by Xcelerate »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #59
Xcelerate wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost none can understand the math See this is the point I disagree with. I think plenty of high school students can understand the math necessary to do cutting-edge scientific research. No need for child prodigies at all. Maybe for work that's Nobel prize winning or something, but your average run-of-the-mill PhD student? I imagine tons of 14-18 year olds are capable of it. I was writing my own Metropolis light t…

Can understand versus could understand. One implies current background while the other implies potential ability. Given that many high school seniors graduate with only a basic grasp of Alg I, you're probably placing too high a value on the normalcy of your own experiences. I understand this because I once ranked in the top 10 in my state for mathematics when I was a kid. So I potentially could have understood specia…

That's a fair point. I do think it's changing though. My sister is a fifth grade elementary school teacher (she teaches sixth grade math to the advanced class though). She was telling me the other day about how the students are all writing apps for their phones nowadays. I laughed and said, "Haha, no way. 5th graders??" She replied, "Yeah, one girl has been working on an app for organizing health information. She wants to go into the medical field and cure cancer when she's older. Her app lets you input names, body weight, height, and other health information". My jaw dropped. She went on, "It's strange; when we were younger, you were the only one I knew doing this weird stuff. Now they all are."

Granted, she's teaching a gifted class at a top ranked (public) elementary school, but still -- that many fifth graders know how to program for iOS or Android? I was surprised.

So I think your point is spot on. The next generation is going to "grow up to live in a world where we would have free access to educational materials and other wonderful information over the internet." The "could" will turn into a "can".

Re: Science Fairs Aren't So Fair

#70

Post by Xcelerate »

dalke wrote: post #51
Xcelerate wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost none can understand the math See this is the point I disagree with. I think plenty of high school students can understand the math necessary to do cutting-edge scientific research. No need for child prodigies at all. Maybe for work that's Nobel prize winning or something, but your average run-of-the-mill PhD student? I imagine tons of 14-18 year olds are capable of it. I was writing my own Metropolis light t…

A big problem for high school students is to know what is cutting-edge research. I agree that knowing the math is rarely the problem. But I agree with timr's statement that "no high school student can do graduate-level scientific research." (We're excluding the very rare exceptions, like timr's example of high school students who have been working in a lab for years.) There are two "cans" here; a high school student…

You indeed have a very good point which I had forgotten about. The literature search is a tremendous amount of work. I'm still confused three years into grad school why some articles make it into top journals and others do not. It mostly seems to come down to how novel and important the work is; not how "difficult" the work is to perform. I saw something in Nature the other day, and my first reaction was "Seriously? I could program that in a weekend." But then I began researching the topic and figured out no work had ever been done in that area before, and the result was really surprising and counterintuitive. The reason it was in Nature wasn't because the project was a lot of work; it was because it was a great idea that no one had thought of.

And it does seem like every new idea I think of has already been done in some form when I start searching for it. I thought I had discovered a new kind of interaction between hydrogen and lithium the other day. I did a search for articles between year 2000 and now -- nothing came up. I was really excited until I lowered the starting search year to 1980 and discovered the entire concept had already been exhaustively researched in the early 90s, and now there's not much more to say about it.

So yes, you're right; that would be difficult for a high school student.

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