Any experiment that dares to question the “orthodoxy of the day” (so-called climate change, little boys and little girls really *ARE* different) will be killed a-birthing, and its sponsors shunned and vilified.
Prepare yourselves, kiddies!
About 20 years ago I remember reading about a guy who was offering a “solar powered clothes dryer” for sale for $20. He made this amazing offer in the back of magazines, etc. People would send him the $20, and they’d get about 10 feet of clothesline and a dozen clothespins.
Depending upon age, there are probably not many kids that could put together a decent science fair project without some adult help. It does get them thinking about what scientists actually do and how they do it though.
Wow, they would have freaked at my experiment involving solid rocket engines having testing for different thrust strengths in differing oxygen environments in 8th grade.
As excepted it did little until it got so rich that it caught the metal stand on fire and burned everything up in about 1 second.
Made a heck of a bang.
“We also learned that this experiment was so potentially dangerous that Veronica would have to carry it out under the supervision of a trained expert, who would first have to submit a detailed risk assessment.”
Well, duh, if you are culturing potentially deadly bacteria, you ought to have someone around who actually knows the risks and how to mitigate them.
I read the whole article - on and on - and didn’t find the results of his daughter’s science experiment either....
Water, vinegar or lemon juice?
The charge is valid. It part of the process of resume padding starting prenatally to build an application for an elite university. The kid who builds a telescope on his own with spare parts from the barn counts for nothing these days. To count these days, Daddy has to get you a job in a laboratory at age 10 working for a Nobel Prize winner, who, by the way, got where he did by building a telescope at age 10 from used junk around the house. Gumption, self-reliance and inventiveness are things that you cannot give someone.
Science fair was fun. My dad always got excellent grades on my projects.
Take an average intelligence person,
marinade him in communism,
and see what happens.
When I was in Jr High, my science teacher had “explosive day”.
Ended by throwing 1/2 lb of Sodium in a trashcan full of water.
The end result was I went all-in and took every science/electronics class I could in my teens.
Now I travel the world helping design microprocessors for companies.
If all I had gotten was the nonsense coming out of today’s ‘science’ classes, I would be a car mechanic.
Make a volcano out of PlayDoh. Fill it with vinegar and baking soda. Take your “C” and move on with life.
Now he wants everyone to know how concerned he is about them.
He could have simply had his daughter do her project as her project and competed against other students who did their own work.
This is ridiculous.
Everyone knows it’s an adult woman’s mouth that has the worst amount of bacteria in it, not a little girls’ mouth. /south park
I grew up with Scientific American, especially the Amateur Scientist column. Home made cyclotrons, van de Graaff generators, high power lasers, all kinds of good stuff. Always wanted to contribute a project.
The time came in the early 70s. Well, things had changed. I was informed that my little high energy plasma project was too dangerous for the revamped column. (This was after the passing of C.L. Stong). I had another chance in the late 1990s. This time I was informed that any project had be able to be replicated for no more than $100 and had to make use of commonly available items.
After a fashion, it sort of got folded into a column. Shortly thereafter the column died. Wonder why.
I still refer to the columns of the 1950s and 60s.
Reading some of these comments makes one understand why China is going to kick our ass in the next generation.
Thirty years ago I got to be a science fair judge in Gallup New Mexico. There were a bunch of kids who lived out in the middle of nowhere, but who put together some very good science exhibits. They weren’t privileged by any means other than having the opportunity to excel.