Comments on: A Fair Bit of Fun with Science

By: Clifford

Clifford — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 18:06:04 +0000

I’ll certainly give it some thought, and get back to you. In the meantime, if others reading want to throw out some ideas too, that might be useful to many. A first port of call is for him to visit the website of the science fair and get ideas about topics from what has gone before. A combination of original thoughts and building on the work of others (not copying per se, but developing things further or in new directions) is how good science is done, and so there is nothing wrong with getting a good idea about what sorts of things others have found feasible. See the link I gave in the post above and go to the lists of abstracts.

Cheers,

-cvj

By: Tere

Tere — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:26:05 +0000

Hi! I am the mother of a twelve year old honor student who competes in Science Fairs in his school in San Juan, Puerto Rico. When he was in sixth grade, he won First Place in his school for a project measuring static in several materials and third place in the Regional Fair. Last year, he competed in the area of structures with a project that analyzed the strength of the spider web and did an experiment with LEGO blocks to see whether the one supported with a spider like web would withstand stronger hurricane force winds. He again won first prize at his school and this time secondplace in the Regional Fair.
This year, he is interested in pursuing a project on electromagnetic levitation and would like to propose to do an experiment on whether gravity could affect the growth of bacteria in Petri dishes. The problem is to have the bacteria experience weightlessness with a gravitational force. However, we have exchanged e-mails with a Physicist from UCLA who was extremely kind to devote his valuable time to answering our questions. I admire that persons such as you and this professor would take time to answer questions from kids that are interested in science. Unfortunately, the topic appears not to be a good one. Would you share w/us your thoughts suggestions on a good topic in Physics that he could pursue?

We would deeply appreciate your guidance and valuable time.

By: Location, Location, Location - Asymptotia

Location, Location, Location - Asymptotia — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 20:26:13 +0000

[...] Some interesting news in the outreach mission. From time to time, Asymptotia posts get picked up by some of the local blogs of note, such as LA Observed, and that’s just great, since many things I talk about here are right at the intersection of local interest and the arts and sciences, especially education (such as talking in a local school), events such as the Categorically Not! ones at Santa Monica Airport, and issues such as the environment, in addition to the pure fun stuff, and the tasty stuff. For example, Kevin Roderick at LA Observed was kind enough to mention the posts about the Griffith Observatory (the new relaunch, and the controversy about the use of actors in the planetarium show), judging at the Science Fair at the California Science Center, as well as the post on the open day at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory , and the post about cycling in the city in combination with public transportation, as an alternative to blindly using your car/SUV for most journeys. [...]

By: Amusement With Physics - Asymptotia

Amusement With Physics - Asymptotia — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:37:57 +0000

[...] (”Boring science fair”. The cheek. Science fairs can be fun! Anyway, moving on…) It’s an interesting report. It’s been going on for some time, and this event is organized by the Utah State University Physics Department. I also found a report in the Deseret Morning News by Tammy Walquist, which was quite informative. (Photo above by Laura Seitz, of Jessica Rocha (left) and Shelese Sheffield, Kaysville Junior High eighth-graders, is from the article.) An extract: The main point of the activity is to increase interest in physics and give students hands-on experience, said event organizer JR Dennison of the USU Physics Department. “We want to get students excited and interested in science and technology,” he said. Students could participate in six different contests, from designing the logo for next year’s Physics Day T-shirts to building a model roller coaster to reading the G-forces at different points on the Colossus Fire Dragon. [...]

By: Clifford

Clifford — Sat, 26 May 2007 14:15:35 +0000

Oh… wait… that’s the national anthem… I meant the other song… you know:

dah dah dah dum da-dah dum da-dah
daa daa daa daa da-daa dum dah-daa

and so forth….

-cvj

By: stevenm

stevenm — Fri, 25 May 2007 16:05:15 +0000

Ah, yes…the song:

Scientists, scientists…we must take over the world;
Scientists, scientists…our science flag will everywhere be unfurled;
Scientists, scientists…in unison we stand;
Scientists, scientists…we will assume command…
You leaders of the world;
You have been so conceited;
Against our knowledge you are no match;
You will simply be defeated.
You leaders of the world;
No matter what you send;
You cannot win…we are supreme;
Your time is at an end;
Go run and hide and try and seal your border;
But we will prevail…our time has come;
The Science New World Order…

By: Clifford

Clifford — Fri, 25 May 2007 05:30:01 +0000

stevenm,

Eeeexcellent. And when the coded command comes, don’t forget to sing the hopeful song about the glorious future that we all agreed to sing in unison as we carry out our assignments.

-cvj

By: stevenm

stevenm — Fri, 25 May 2007 04:04:55 +0000

“All scientists have emergency escape craft by the way along with our plans to take over the world, our lab coat and so forth…”

Clifford, my own emergency escape jet craft is always fuelled up and on standby and a crisp new white lab coat awaits neatly folded on the seat. Just waiting now for when you will send out the coded command…

By: Science Fair Video - Asymptotia

Science Fair Video - Asymptotia — Thu, 24 May 2007 17:16:52 +0000

[...] « A Fair Bit of Fun with Science [...]

By: Yvette

Yvette — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:54:47 +0000

Hooray for science fair! I miss it now, thanks a lot Clifford.

Of course, I feel obliged to Jude’s comments regarding competent judges. My judges understood astronomy (one memorable year we had a retired civil engineer and a mom called in last second because we needed at least two), and first prize went to the kid who said nonsensical things that nonetheless sounded impressive. It was slightly demoralizing amongst us students who knew what was up but couldn’t correct them… but hey, I still remember having the excitement of having an excuse to buy astronomical filters or wrap antenna wire around my room, so I shall not complain too loudly.

By: Carl Brannen

Carl Brannen — Thu, 24 May 2007 07:37:37 +0000

The escape pod seems to have 2 seats, so I believe that this identifies it as the A-12 trainer, the precursor to the famed SR-71 blackbird. That I’ve never seen, but the Boeing museum of flight, south of Seattle, has a beautiful M-21 with the D-21 drone, which is quite similar.

These are stunningly beautiful planes from a distance and are even more stunningly beautiful up close.

By: Jude

Jude — Thu, 24 May 2007 05:48:13 +0000

I’ve been a science fair judge for 8 years at local school science fairs. I love it too, but I was shocked this year to be the only non-teacher asked to judge. The teachers who asked me to judge said that they were so unhappy with the previous year’s judges that they figured I could just do it because I understand the science fair process. “They picked the wrong projects to win,” they explained. (Judges should be given some training before they’re turned loose to judge the first time).

I knew what they meant, since my daughter’s regional science fair award-winning project almost didn’t make it past the judges at her local science fair (they gave her a third place, but the teachers sent her to regionals anyway).

The teachers never seem to work it out so that we can talk to the students while we’re judging. Student explanations are an important part of the project. Judging projects in isolation from their creators is not educational. You wouldn’t have this problem at the state level, but at the local level, I find myself explaining basic scientific method to students. “You planted three bean plants and treated each one differently? What do you think about the sample size?”–that sort of thing.

Judging science fairs is exhausting (especially when you’re the only judge) but lots of fun. Thanks for sharing the experience.

By: Bee

Bee — Thu, 24 May 2007 03:18:16 +0000

Hi Aaron, well, yes. The upper right plot shows a deviation of the total cross-section for fermion-fermion scattering (tree level) with a minimal length from the standard model case. One finds (kind of unsurprisingly) that from the collider data (TeVatron) one gets a limit somewhere around an inverse TeV. This is in a scenario with Extra Dimensions (ADD) and a lowered Planck Scale. Details are in hep-th/0305262. Maybe my post on the minimal length is also helpful. Best, B.

By: Bee

Bee — Thu, 24 May 2007 03:10:17 +0000

I was quite impressed by some of the kids. It is amazing how serious they are with that, and how much effort must have gone into the preparation. I think this is a pretty cool event. It is so typically American to me, like Cheerleaders jumping on the grass or so. Do other countries have similar things? I know in Germany there is nothing comparable (some schools have similar attempts but its an exception).

Though I have to say some of the kids also were hopelessly naive. There was more than one guy who I asked where he got this or that information from and he said: from the internet. Well. I believe on the internet one can find support for whatever weirdness one is looking for. (E.g. that the earth is flat).

I still think PI should invite the kid who measured how efficient different glove insulations are
Best,

By: Aaron F.

Aaron F. — Thu, 24 May 2007 03:00:28 +0000

OOH! Totally off-topic, but is the “observation of a minimum length” on Dr. Hossenfelder’s slide based on actual data?!