Fair Play

Yesterday saw my annual stint of judging at the California State Science Fair. Somehow it managed to sneak up on me this year, and so I did not get to do what I planned to do, which is encourage one or two scientist/engineer friends of mine in the area to sign up to get involved, since it is such fun and quite rewarding (ahem: Michelle P., Amy M., mark your calendars for next year! I’m going to come a-calling…) See earlier posts (e.g., here, here) for science fair descriptions, and the fair’s own site with lots of photos each year is here.

(Ok, there’s the whole getting up in time to arrive there by 7:00am or so. That bit is less than good, perhaps.) I arrived a bit later than 7:00, due to some breakfast procrastination that I somehow sometimes manage to do even when I wake up with plenty of time (a whole hour this time) to get ready. My plan to simply set out by 6:10am and pleasantly walk/bike and bus down (my usual mode) was thwarted by this and so I had to take a somewhat quicker mode of transport, launching out of the batcave in a hurry at 6:50am! By 7:15am the parents and students in their SUVs and minivans were arriving at the California Science Center in droves, and so this meant that parking was a bit more of a challenge that it would have been 15 minutes earlier. But as you can perhaps see on the right (click for larger view), it all worked out in the end… ( 🙂 )

Here’s a shot of the annual morning briefing of the volunteer judges (all well fed, in principle, from the breakfast provided outside):

This is in the Science Center’s IMax theatre. I will admit that rather the fully listening to the briefing (which I’ve heard many times before) I was mostly thinking that it would be great if they used this theatre in the evenings to show feature films (in addition to the usual documentary-type programming they do during the day). Advantages? (1) Would be a nice central location to see films on IMax, cutting down on people driving to North Hollywood and so forth) (2) Some of this broader audience would maybe get interested in the science on display nearby. Just a thought… it would be akin to the excellent usage of the Natural History Museum space next door) for after hours events such as receptions, performances, parties… which I’ve blogged about before (e.g. here and here).

As we headed off (just after 8:00am) to do our section meetings (I was doing Senior Physics and Astronomy this year) I passed the point where the opening remarks to the actual young hopefuls – the students themselves – were being made:

Overall, it was a good session (we finish at about 1:00pm, working out the list of recipients of the prizes and honorable mentions while munching on lunch), as usual. I found it a bit more tiring this time since there were a few of the students presenting things in a way (ok., let’s not be polite – wrong things that they were adamant were right) that meant that I had to argue with them about it a bit. One has to do this firmly but gently of course, so as to not be too negative or discouraging of their interest and enthusiasm. Taking the time and care to navigate the line between dealing with this the right way and the wrong way (just slamming the door shut) is worth doing, but can be tiring.

Anyway, I think it all went rather well in the end.

One thing that bothered me (am I the only one who noticed I wonder?): I was put out a bit by the fact that the water they served with lunch sports the very pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo that we are all assembled here to try to stamp out? “Energized water”… Why is the Science fair tacitly supporting this crap, folks?

Ok. Time to have a lie down with some milk and cookies, cvj. Calm down…

-cvj