Re: A. Einstein and science-fairs

[Richard Tarara <rtarara@SAINTMARYS.EDU>]

Let me add to what Joel is saying here.  Every year I judge three levels of
science fairs.  Elementary school, a whole school system, and the senior
division of the Regional fair (where we select two projects for the national
fair).  It is permissible for the lower levels to present posters and do
group projects, but as the levels progress upwards the demands for some kind
of experiment increase.  Clearly the students are being forced into the
"Hypothesis" format by their instructors, but I've never been part of a
judging team that actually took someone down for NOT following a proscribed
format.  Now it is true that at the senior level we see a range of projects
from 'graduate level research' (done by HS students) to some pretty pitiful
attempts at 'science displays'.  We do penalize projects at this level for
not being experiments and/or having clearly defined results and conclusions.
The better projects DO start out with some real goal or aim which _can_
usually be phrased as a hypothesis.

There is another class of projects that have been gaining in popularity in
recent years.  These are the product testing projects.  Personally, I think
these are fine--well not at the senior level, but for anyone else.  Students
are usually enthusiastic about them, they see the relevance, and often do a
very good job of exploring the many variables and the difficulties in
controlling such.  Two problems arise with these projects.  One is that to
articulate a hypothesis for this kind of work is SO artificial as to be
laughable.  The second is often difficult to put these projects into one of
the standard categories.  I have asked that the organizers look at putting
in an 'applied science' category in which to place these, but they worry
that if a project goes to the next level that it won't be properly placed.

Rick

----- Original Message -----
From: Joel Rauber <Joel_Rauber@SDSTATE.EDU>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 1999 9:04 AM
Subject: Re: A. Einstein and science-fairs


> Let me play devil's advocate for a moment.
>
> I have judged in science fairs and downgraded projects for reasons similar
> (not identical) to ones being castigated here.  I down graded projects
that
> were along the lines of "build a kit".  While it quite likely was a
> beneficial and worthwhile to the student who did it, and I'm sure they
> learned a lot; I'm not sure it is quite in the spirit of "event a method
of
> investigation that tries to answer a question", which I think is more
> properly the venue of a "science" project.  I didn't require that it have
to
> be written up in "hypothesis" format. But I did feel that it should
involve
> some sort of data taking that helps to answer some sort of question (or
even
> hypothesis).  I.e. the idea of observation and data taking for a directed
> purpose.
>
> This means I didn't grade highly the traditional build an electric motor
> type projects.
>
> I don't think these projects should be viewed as not having any parameters
> at all and anything goes as long as it is educational.  Perhaps the
student
> who wants to learn more about transistors by building an electronic device
> should be allowed to do so as an alternative to doing the science fair
> "science project".
>
> Joel Rauber