I probably disagree with the overall feel of Joel Rauber's message, but
I agree with part of it. He does not like the "build a kit" type of
project, and I would agree.
The problem with "build a kit" is the kits are designed to work without
the builder having to learn anything, do any experimentation, make any
decisions. I would make an analogy between this and "paint by
numbers." If you can manage to match the number with the paint bottle,
and if you can stay within the lines, you can create (?) a painting
that looks reasonably nice, but it's not clear you learned anything
about art, nor did you act as an artist.
But if someone gives you a blank canvas, a bunch of paints, a couple
brushes, and you try to paint a picture, then we're beginning to get
more of a feel for being an artist. And if you begin the painting and
discover it's not what you want, so you paint over some things, or even
throw it away and start over, then we're making more progress. And if
you notice you get different effects with different brush strokes and
different blending techniques, then we're really getting somewhere.
You get the point.
Joel says that the project "should involve some sort of data taking
that helps to answer some sort of question..." Whether I agree with
that statement depends upon the types of questions that are allowed.
If the question must be a question "about nature" then I have a
problem. That leads to the rash of projects like
"which spot remover works best on different kinds of stains?"
"which type of potting soil grows the best plants?"
"what color of paint in a room makes a person have lower blood
pressure?"
All of the above "questions" are very easily turned into hypothesis
form: "I hypothesize that people will tend to have lower blood pressure
in a room painted yellow than in a room painted blue."
I think valid questions could also be:
"How would one go about measuring the speed of light?"
"How would one go about making a guitar amplifier?"
My daughter wants to build an audio amplifier. She's only 13 and knows
nothing about electronics. She could assemble a kit... but I won't let
her (nor will her teacher). But I can imagine directing her in a
series of "experiments" where she really does try experimentation,
modification, more experimentation. I can show her basically how a
transistor works and let her try building a single transistor "class-B"
amplifier. She can then "observe" she is only getting amplification
for half the waveform. Then we can experiment with class-A amplifiers
and/or true class-B (push-pull) amplifiers. We can also try some small
transistors and find out we can easily turn them into "toast." So she
can learn about thermal dissipation, various transistor sizes, heat
sinks, etc.
It is clear to me that this project could involve quite a bit of
experimentation and decision making on her part. It is also clear that
pulling this off is going to involve a lot of work on my part. If I
can manage to do this, I think she will learn some science, she'll do
some experimentation, she'll make some decisions, and most important...
she can say that she chose a project she was interested in (and I also
hope she will be able to say that she enjoyed it). I'm not overly
excited about this project, but she is... and I think it has merit.
However, to get this past the teacher we'll have to "invent" a
hypothesis. That will be the admission ticket that lets her do her
thing. We'll come up with a hypothesis... but it will be pure smoke
screen.
As for Joel's final paragraph... I'm going to come clean and confess
that I must not be a scientist. Everything I've published, i.e. every
new thing I've measured, was done using an instrument I built. That's
not so revealing... but here it comes... I didn't care much about the
things I measured. Who cares about the half-life of 47-Cr? Some
theorist did, but not me. But I sure did have a swell time building
the device that measured it.
BTW... Some local people have said that THE best thing gained by
science fairs is forcing a parent and child to do a project together!
As a judge, it is obvious which projects have received parental
support and which have had little support. Aside from being sorry
(both for the kids with too little support as well as for those with
too much support) this doesn't bother me and it has truth. The parents
are not present during the judging, but sometimes they are present
during the "open house" after the judging. Last year I was looking at
a project that I did not judge, and the father said, "Hey look at this;
I noticed this strange thing and it totally surprised us; isn't this
cool?" The son said, "You didn't notice that, I did. Remember, you
were going to try something else and I was the one who did this part."
And they got into a friendly argument trying to reconstruct the
history of how they discovered this interesting thing. This was not
only science, these two were a science team collaborating on a
project. I thought this discussion was about the most cool thing I had
witnessed all morning.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D. Phone/voice-mail: 419-358-3270
Professor of Chemistry & Physics FAX: 419-358-3323
Chairman, Science Department E-Mail edmiston@bluffton.edu
Bluffton College
280 West College Avenue
Bluffton, OH 45817
-----Original Message-----
From: Joel Rauber [SMTP:Joel_Rauber@SDSTATE.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 1999 10:05 AM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
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 me
thod 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".