Science Projects

I love science projects. I have fond memories of my first one, done with Best Friend before she was Best Friend. Can you eat and drink upside down? We took turns doing shaky headstands against the wall and getting fed. Boy, that kind of thing builds trust when you're ten years old! She was such a good sport.

And then there was the time in Junior High, that awkward and exciting era, when I won the top award in the Botany division at the District judging and got my picture in the paper. I still remember the brown package with lodgepole pinecones that a nice forest ranger shipped to me all the way from Colorado. I put those things under a heat lamp to find out what temperature would cause the resin to melt so they would pop open. Some trees need forest fires!

The next year I picked a way-too-ambitious project based on my concern about how car exhaust adversely affects roadside plants. After a trip to the local university's chemistry library to find an equation that would help me find out how much oxygen a plant uses based on the amount of time a flame burns (or some such convoluted notion), I realized I was sunk. And learned that choosing the right question, and a skill-level appropriate method to test it, is all-important.

This year, my kids are at a school that pushes science projects. They had never done any before. Oldest had to do one for her science grade; Engineer decided to do one because he'd heard there was prize money at the district level, and hey, we had already built a catapult over the summer, and oh, yeah, sister and I told him it was good practice.

I loved walking them through the scientific method, and asking them questions to help them along. When they were done with the experiment, I loved buying the boards and the art supplies with Oldest. I loved the Saturdays and snow days when the kids pored over their boards, and I stayed close for when they needed my help. I shared their hopeful anticipation as we put the completed boards in the trunk, drove them to school, took them out and walked in together to set them up.

So when the school's judging day came, I was super-excited. And surprised at myself for being so excited. These aren't your projects, I told myself. But I had this gut feeling that Engineer had picked just the right question for his age. And the right method for testing it. He even hand-wrote the entire project, save the title.

He is so proud of his big frilly blue ribbon. It's his first ribbon ever, he says. He is excited about District judging in a few weeks. (I think he sees dollar signs.)

I am so proud that I didn't do his project for him. (I will be typing up the project, though - our school officials said it should be typed to have a chance at District. Don't worry, they told me that parents have permission to type. I wasn't sure before.)

Typing or no typing, I smile at his success. And whatever I did right so he could get there.