Science Fair

[CBL4]

I recently was a judge in the Washington State Science Fair. It was a lot of fun and I was truly impressed by some of the students but one thing bothered me.

I was told we should try to award 10% of the people 1st place prizes, 10% 2nd place, 10% 3rd place and everyone who showed at least half a brain would get honorable mention. And not even these instructions were follow - over half the people get 1st, 2nd or 3rd and one year one third of the 7th graders got first place prizes. (I should note that there is one real first prize per grade.)

When I entered a science fair, first place meant you were the best. 2nd place meant your were the second best. Honorable mention meant that you have a really good project.

It really bothers me to see such grade inflation at a science fair. There is a line from the movie The Incredibles where a kid says "If everyone is special, no one is special."

CBL

 

[gnome]

Something similar has happened at a sci-fi con I go to, they have a costume contest where they used to have a clear first and second place, and then a bunch of what was effectively honorable mentions.

It's gotten so large that they now award up to three first place prizes, and five second place prizes. They had to invent a new category, "best in show," to actually award the best costume.

 

[pupdog]

Yes, indeed, "where all the children are above average."

 

[CBL4]

They had to invent a new category, "best in show," to actually award the best costume

I talked to the head judge (he was not the originator of the system) and he said that it would be too difficult to determine real 1st, 2nd and 3rd. I said that if they were already determining a real 1st place, they could probably do 2nd and 3rd at the same time. He paused and said he would think about it. Then he said something about having to come up with a different name for them. How about 1st, 2nd and 3rd?

I have one small defense for them. The groups vary tremendously in size. I think there were over 70 entries in certain lower grades. Because of the international science fair, high school projects are split into about 20 categories which mean in some categories there are only 1 person. Being 1st out of 1 is totally different from being 1st out of 70. Their judging allows for no first place prizes if no prizes are worthy.

CBL

 

[Brown]

As I mentioned in this thread, I had a bothersome experience with judging at a science fair, when the students were told that there would be one set of judging criteria, but someone neglected to tell the judges about the criteria.

 

[CBL4]

As I mentioned in this thread, I had a bothersome experience with judging at a science fair, when the students were told that there would be one set of judging criteria, but someone neglected to tell the judges about the criteria.

I looked at the thread and it was totally different from my own.

I have judged 7th graders two years in a row. The projects I judged were all pretty good and some were excellent. They all had hypotheses, tests and conclusions. It was a statewide fair and this may make a difference. Also there is one Junior High in Selah that has consistently excellent projects.

The ones I can remember off the top of my head were: "Does Teflon make Nail Polish Harder?", "Which Wood Burns the Longest and Produces the Most Heat?", "Do Microbes Exist in Columbia River Basalt?" and "Does the Weight of the Bat Affect Distance of the Baseball?"

I thought the last two were the best. The kid found out that microbes were found in undersea basalt and wanted to find out if it they lived in his local river. He contacted a Phd for the University of Washington to find it if this research had been done. It hadn't and he got some advice. He found the microbes and could describe them but did not have the equipment to identify them.

The baseball one sounded hokey but the boy did a lot of good engineering work to get consistent results from a bat. He understood that his equipment was not consistent with humans because of bat speed and tried to get a radar gun from the police department. He also noticed that with each bat, the fifth result was the highest and wondered about this. Unfortunately, he did not graph the results timewise to see if it was meaningful or a fluke.

The one thing that I find lacking is the fact they do not understand sample size. I have seen conclusions results skewed by one or two anomolous results. For example, one project had results of 8,8,3,4,2,1,3,3,2,2,3 and the girl did not notice that the first two results appeared unrelated to the rest.

CBL

 

[cbish]

I can't resist being cynical.

How do you you know the kids did it?

CBL wrote:

thought the last two were the best. The kid found out that microbes were found in undersea basalt and wanted to find out if it they lived in his local river. He contacted a Phd for the University of Washington to find it if this research had been done. It hadn't and he got some advice. He found the microbes and could describe them but did not have the equipment to identify them.

Meaning his dad/uncle/neighbor is a PhD for Udub and has tons of info on it.

The one thing that I find lacking is the fact they do not understand sample size........For example, one project had results of 8,8,3,4,2,1,3,3,2,2,3 and the girl did not notice that the first two results appeared unrelated to the rest.

That's because they're 7th graders. She's more interested in learning how to french kiss.

I'm razzing you a little bit. But, I quit doing and judging science fairs long ago for this reason: too much parent participation, not enough student.

I have a co-worker who teaches 9th. grade physical science. He has a project called "The Great Rubber-Band Race", where students take what they've learned in class and build a rubber-band propelled car. There are guidelines regarding size, weight, materials, design etc. You should see how many parents go beserk when dad's car....er, I mean Junior's car fails to qualify. It's become such a nightmare that he has had to change it to an extra credit assignment.