This past weekend I was a judge for a science fair at a near by high school. I was actually pretty nervous that the students would know more than I would! The fair went really well. I had four projects to judge:
1) An experiment to compare the effectiveness of toothbrush-cleaning methods. This girl was good. She had a great study design that included controls for a number of variables, carried out the experiment in an actual laboratory at Concordia University, and was very serious about her findings. She told me all about her possible sources of error, other experiments she wanted to conduct, and had an acknowledgement list that was fit for the Oscars. Very impressive.
[Did I mention she was only in grade 10? Heading straight for a doctorate I'm sure.]
2) An experiment to determine if fabric softener increases the flammability of clothing. Very dramatic. Very. They ending off their descriptive (and very scripted) speech with "If you decide to not use fabric softener - you will be making a decision that may save your life!"
[Are you even old enough do to laundry???]
3) Testing the relative conductivity of yellow fruits. Terrible - and they knew it. So nervous. So very, very nervous. Shaky voices, shaky hands, and sweat when asked questions. They had lemonade for the though!!!
[Um, at least they tried????}
moving on...
4) An experiment to test the relative resistance of bathing suits to wear and tear from chlorinated pools. These two scientists were swimmers. Oops, my mistake! One was a swimmer, one was a diver. The diver was very excited about their findings. The swimmer was Vanna White pointing to pictures and the display board as their speech was presented. Nothing like a very excited, very short, very red-headed grade 10er telling you about her diving, her swimsuit and that she has even met an olympic diver - paired up with a very serious presenter fanning her hand over pictures, diagrams, and charts as either of them spoke of the project.
[If only there was a scoring category for cuteness, the red-head would have taken the cake.]
Great! Handed in my score sheet and T&me headed for the door. But wait!! All judges (and my cute man to be sure) were invited to a luncheon. We were like "free meal? We're in!"
"Free meal" was an understatement.
Free wine, free beer, free fully-catered Indian cuisine with appetizers, entrees, and dessert/coffee/tea to boot. We filled out plates (and our wine glasses) and headed for a table in the corner. We ate our beautiful meal while looking over the private school's courtyard on our white-linen lined table with a centerpiece made of roses and valentine's day red hearts.
Note to self: Science fairs rock!
2 comments:
I love free dinner!
About the fabric softener - if you don't use it, it's another kind of slow death. Besides, what if there was a fire and you couldn't run to the door fast enough because your pant legs were clinging together. I bet the kid didn't think of that scenario.
Indian food?? where was I? did you save me a samosa or two?
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