cup 'o dirt

First, as an update on the crime that occurred in our apartment. Nature made all things right... Chum Lee has now been taken from this world. I will be honest and say it was a relief and we have all slept better since.

Today I discovered a new favorite thing to do: go to elementary school science fairs. The BYU chemistry club was asked to provide judges for a science fair in Provo and so I got to go and talk to 4-6 graders about their projects. It was one of the best things I've ever done. The kids were so cute and it was funny to see the whole spectrum of projects: from ones the kids did without any help (spelling engine "ingen") to ones you could tell parents did for them, the ones that followed the scientific method religiously to the ones who didn't know what "hypothesis" meant. There were the classic solar systems and volcanoes. There were also some on solar power and wind power. There was even one with an absorption spectrum for chlorophyll.

I learned a lot from them, maybe not about scientific principles but about why we do science. One little kid presented more of a research project on cigarette smoking and I was feeling sad that I might have to mark her down because of the lack of hypothesis, testing, etc. But I asked her why she did her project and she said "Well my dad smokes and I wanted to convince him to quit." I'll be honest, I gave her higher scores because of that.

I realized how awesome science fairs are. Maybe it's just the nerd that I am but it warms my heart to see kids being curious and designing and performing experiments to answer their questions.