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My personal rules for science are threefold: 1) create fun/interest, 2)
teach something, 3) don't teach anything WRONG. You'll notice that
explaining EVERYTHING is nowhere on the list.
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).
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.