Finding Math in Science

I had the pleasure of judging a local science fair for an elementary school this morning. Often the idea of a science fair project brings the parents great anxiety. I'm not gonna lie. I've been there. So let's focus on the benefits!

• Students state their purpose. Here they get to choose what interests them and dig deeper to answer aspects they remain curious about and will explore.
• They can research the topic to see what's been done before or if they can go down a different path. They can then draw comparisons or differences to simialr experiments. Probably the most unique deviation I saw was an egg dropping experiement and the materials that would allow an egg to survive a fall from about 15 feet. Did you know if you tucked the egg inside of an apple it would stay entact???
• They decide how to test their prediction, or hypothesis. 
• They document the materials and procedures for completion in case someone else wants to try it
• They state their conclusion to reflect on what they learned as compared to what they thought would happen

The reality is very little in school is left up to the child. They are held to a tightly controlled agenda of things to learn each day so a year's worth of grade level material can be mastered before summer vacation. Science fairs allow for one of those "free choice" opportunities.

What amazing young mathematical scientists we are grooming. I was excited to see the projects, the amazing resources some kids have at their disposal (cool gadgets that digitally measure things I never thought of), the data tables and interpretation of the data to draw conclusions, averaging of outcomes, specificity of time or length in presenting their data, and organizing it all with clearly labeled graphs and tables.

WTG kids!