What's Science Got To Do With It?

After having wrangled the State Report for the last two months and finally finishing it last week, S is now going to work on a Science project, due in a month.

The Science Fair is a brand new thing for S's school. Apparently they never had this for 5th graders before. Mrs. P, S's 5th grade teacher, has a daughter who went to a different elementary school in the same district and had to do a science project in 5th grade. So when Mrs. P came to S's school to teach, she was shocked that we didn't have a Science Fair and immediately initiated to set one up.

That's all nice and well. Except that after the gruelling two months dealing with the State Report, we could sure use a breather. Unfortunately, there's simply not enough time for that before school gets wrapped up for the year. So we're forced to take this science project head-on.

That's still okay with us. I mean, both S's dad and I each hold a degree in science and we're clear-thinking and logical persons. It should be easy to come up with a good topic for S to sink her teeth into.

In fact, we gave her lots of good ideas. Mine was tweaking an paper airplane called "the Master" and finding the optimun design to achieve the best flight. Aerodynamics. Pretty cool, huh?

S even joked that she could do some kind of shooting experiment with her dad to test the ammo at the shooting range. Sounds like a lot of fun, I said, except that I don't think R's parents would approve.

Yep, the project doesn't have to be done solo. So S has decided to go into this with her friend R. R's parents are liberal-minded and very much into homeopathy and alternative medicine that kind of stuff. And the funny thing is, R's mom has pointed out more than once that she's got a master's degree in Bioscience. So it never ceases to amaze me just how deluded she is whenever the topic of "treatment" comes up in our conversation.

Long story short. Yesterday evening, R rang S up to talk about what they'd do for the project. Sitting at the diningroom table, we could hear S talk about birds and bird food, and what bird would like what kind of bird food. In other words, completely unrelated to what we'd discussed half an hour ago.

I said to M, "I can already tell that's a bad idea." M agreed.

After S hung up, we asked her if they'd come up with a topic for their project. "Yeah!" S enthused, "We're going to put out different kinds of bird food and see which attracts bluejays the most."

Yeah right, as if they could just sit by the window all day for days to observe bird activities.

Honestly, how can they even make it work? The project is destined to fail, because A) They need to go to school and don't have the time to do the observation themselves; B) In order to make this experiment work, they'd need a motion-activated camera to record all the activities surrounding the bird food. And of course they don't have such equipment for it.

Gently, we explained to S why this wouldn't work. She listened half-heartedly but agreed that they needed to come up with something else.

This morning, I found the Science Fair packet that came home with S in her backpack. It said that the sign-up form is due tomorrow.

"You need to make sure R won't go ahead and turn in the sign-up form." I told S.

With an uncomprehending look on her face, S asked, "Why is it again that the bird thing won't work?"

GRRRGGHH!!!

I'm just glad that I didn't have to walk her to school and that M was the one explaining to her yet again why that "project" of R's simply wouldn't work.

Around noon, M called home to touch base.

"Did I tell you that I had the pleasure of telling R's mom why their project wasn't scientific this morning?" he said.

Turns out R's mom was pretty defensive about their brilliant idea. And when M proceeded to refute every "scientific" notion of hers, she got all mad and said in a huff, "Well, guess what S came up with at first?"

"What?" I asked M with mild intrigue.

"She said, 'S wanted to test which bullet can go the farthest!'"

I chuckled and M said, "So I said, "I told S that testing to see which ammo is the most precise is probably a better idea.' After that we pretty much reached school, so I just left her."

"What about S and R? Did S talk R out of it?" I was more interested in that.

"Don't know. All I heard on the way to school was S telling R that it wouldn't work."

Well, imagine my surprise when I picked S up after school today!

Asked if they'd decided on what to do with the project, S said, "It's not which food will get the most jays. It'll be which food gets the least jays."

Wel, what difference does it make? No matter how they spin it, the approach would have to be the same. And that means they don't have to the means to do the observations!

But S simply couldn't see it. And she's supposed to be bright and smart and all that! Gosh I can't stand it!