Re: Science Fair

["Donald E. Simanek" <dsimanek@eagle.lhup.edu>]

On Tue, 21 Apr 1998, Raacc wrote:

> I went to my daughter's 6th grade science fair tonight.  The experiments
> ranged from the battery that lasted the longest, to the paper towel that
> absorbed the most.  It was an introduction to the scientific method and I was
> pleasantly surprised at the turn out.

Surprised at the turn out, but were you surprised at the quality of the
experiments and their interpretation/analysis?

Having judged science fairs in my mis-spent youth, I am rather unconvinced
that they are operated in a way which promotes "scientific method"
(whatever that is).

> One experiment dealt with the effect that music has on plant growth.  The
> student had three plants with labels below them giving the names of the
> musical groups.

This goes back to the 50s when they were doing experiments on the "power
of prayer on plants." An interesting reported result was that negative
prayer (praying for the plant to die) was more effective than positive
prayer. I still have the book of this title, which was a hot seller at the
time. Of course the studies claimed proper controls, use of control
groups, etc. etc.

> One group was Hansen(?), another was Spice Girls and the
> third was Blank.  Upon asking, I found that the group, Blank, was actually a
> blank tape.  The conclusion was that the plant experiencing the blank tape
> grew the fastest.  Apparently, plants don't like Spice Girls or Hansen(?).
> Perhaps Harry Chapin or Gordon Lightfoot would have produced better results.

Please tell us what conclusions this student drew from the experiment, and
how one determined what sort of results could have been expected from a
statistical analysis of the inherent variablities of the conditions of the
experiment. Considering these, was the sample size large enough to draw
*any* meaningful conclusions from the experiment? 

> The conclusion I enjoyed the most dealt with the brand of popcorn that popped
> the most.  It was, "The one that popped the most tasted the worst."  Perhaps
> Murphy's Law is fundamental.

I sense that you are expressing the same concerns I have about these
so-called "research" projects, as done in schools. Many projects I've
seen venture into areas which have subjective aspects, and for which one
ought to consider using more than a control group, but also blind or
double-blind experimental protocols. Are the students who do these
projects aware of the importance of this? Do they even know what such
protocols are? This would certainly be a fine place to make students aware
of these matters. Also, statistical analysis of experimental uncertainties
is absolutely necessary to draw any conclusions from most of these, even
to draw negative conclusions.

I know you said 6th grade. That's a bit early to get sophisticated about
these things, too early to expect any meaningful understanding of the
"scientific method". What I'm questioning is whether *these* activites, as
performed, are even appropriate for this level. Aren't there more valuable
and "cleaner" things 6th graders could be doing, such as collecting data,
learning how to make graphs of data, and drawing some conclusions from the
patterns found in data? Perhaps hypothesis-testing could come later,
especially if it involves experiments with lots of variables, some
difficult or impossible to control.

A judge at one of these high school science-fair events once remarked to
me that this is no more than "Playing at Research", that is, play-acting
the role of a scientist as an actor plays a role, going through the
motions and talking the language without necessarily understanding it. "I
play a doctor on TV, so you can trust me when I tell you that this
snake-oil really works!" 

	-- Donald

......................................................................
Dr. Donald E. Simanek                            Office: 717-893-2079
Professor of Physics                                FAX: 717-893-2048
Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, PA. 17745
dsimanek@eagle.lhup.edu                 http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek
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