A Fair Day

On this most unscientific of days, when traditionally we interpret the actions of a large rodent as signifying whether the weather will be wintery for another six weeks or if perchance spring is right around the corner, we finally held our school science fair.

Oh the fun I had as a wandering judge questioning random students about their experiments. They gave us a rubric and a standard set of questions that every student was supposed to be able to answer. First and foremost, they were expected to state the hypothesis and ideally cite some research to support it. Most of the kids I talked to, though, based their theory on personal experience-- they believed the battery, fire log, and detergent they used at home would perform the best. No wonder companies spend so much money marketing to kids.

Another of the stock questions was, How could you improve your experiment? My favorite answer came from a cute little sixth grader wiggling around with a skate board in hand. His display board was very stark-- all black and white with minimal text and missing the required graph. In front of it, though, were four little finger skateboards of the type that are confiscated by teachers any time they make an appearance in the classroom. The student himself wore long shorts, a t-shirt, vans and a cap turned backward on his head. His hypothesis? Skateboarding relieves stress.

"Why do you think so?" I asked.

"Because, I'm a skater and I never feel stress," he told me.

I couldn't argue with that, but his scientific method was a little iffy. He'd gone to the skate park and asked people how they felt as they entered and then again as they left. He also asked a few other random people how they felt. I began to understand why there was no graph.

"So... what would you do differently if you did this experiment again?" I asked him. "How do you think you could improve it?"

"I wouldn't change anything," he told me. "Other people might have a problem with this experiment, but personally, I like how it is. I'm satisfied."

It must have been the skateboard.