Science Fair

The big event this week was the annual torture trial experience of the science fair. In theory, of course, the kids do all their own work: design the experiment, conduct it, analyze the data, and present it. In practice, for children in the younger grades especially, they need a lot of coaching through it. The kids came up with their own topics (though Evelyn's, "I want to study flowers" wasn't very helpful), and then we asked them questions to help them figure out what they wanted to do.

Andrew wanted to find out what kind of ice cream was best to take on a picnic (i.e., which took the longest to melt). This was actually kind of fun. We got a bunch of different kinds of vanilla ice cream and then tested them to see how long they took to melt. We did a few different trial runs to make sure the times were relatively average. In all honesty, it was a good experience: we got to talk to Andrew about confounding variables (although we didn't use that term) and why in an experiment he wanted to control as much as possible (hence the all vanilla ice cream, the testing at the same time, and testing the same amount of ice cream).

So far, so good. But then we have to put together a poster, which means him typing forever, lots of cutting and pasting, lots of discussion--especially about how to graph his results to show how melting time related to a) grams of fat and b) grams of sugar.

And I got the smart idea to put both their posters together on Wednesday, which was early out day. In theory, we'd have lots of time. In practice, I forget that neither kid can really assemble their poster unsupervised, so what this means is lots of work for me. Dan wound up making dinner that night (pancakes) and then helped me get ready for book club, which, in some fit of optimism last month, I'd offered to host this month (clearly, I wasn't thinking of proximity to the science fair).

But we got everything done and the posters turned out all right (I'll have to get some pictures--I forgot to take them day of) and the book group was fun (we read Melissa Dalton-Bradford's lovely Global Mom).

Best of all: no more science fair for another year!

It was also science fair time for Dan on campus, as the university hosts the junior high and high school regional fairs. The winners get to go to the National Science Fair, held in May in Los Angeles (to which Dan will also be going).

This weekend Dan helped out on a geology field trip, which meant he left early yesterday morning and came back around 6 today. These experiences are good all around: they're good for Dan, who generally enjoys being with the students and cooking for them (he volunteered to be the primary chef--see why I love this man?). They're good for the students, who got fed Japanese-style curry and buttermilk scones for dinner (I'll bet most of them have never had such decadent camping food!). And they're good for me and the kids, who realize more than ever how much we rely on him. Needless to say, everyone was very happy to see him this afternoon.