A Moment of Science...

This past Wednesday, I had the wondrous pleasure of judging junior high science fair projects.

There's a little science for ya.

I signed up as a volunteer for this event a few weeks ago, knowing I wouldn't be going anywhere for spring break. The initial email said I was to judge fifth and sixth grade projects. Piece of cake, I thought. I had judged sixth grade projects a few months before in a separate science fair and I found every project very simple to judge, each participant easy to question. That fair had lasted only two hours and I was led to believe that this one would run for a similar length.

How naive I was.

When I arrived at the Student Union on Wednesday, someone directed me to the judges room. Upon entering, a sign-up table demanded my attention. On it were two packets, one blue, reading Junior High, the other red and labeled Senior High. This made me pause and sweat. Confused and a little frightened, I looked up at the others sitting in the room. I quickly noticed that none of them were undergrad students, at least, none of them looked the part. Grad students and professors all, I suspected, and each of them appearing to be much more versed in science than I. After some hesitation, I  chose the blue pill--the Junior High Division--because I thought myself well under-qualified for the Senior High kids.

I took a seat among the strange lot and opened the packet. The first page told me this was the Regional Science Fair and that each participant was competing to go to State. I gulped. Also, I noted that between the Junior and Senior divisions there were about 80 science projects, all needing to be judged at least 4 times. At that point, there were about 13 judges in the room. I didn't think we'd possibly be able to judge everyone in such a short time (remember, I thought this would only last two hours).

Thankfully, two things happened: 1.) I noticed there was Starbucks coffee and breakfast snacks (it was about 8:30 in the morning at that point) in the back of the room so I greedily helped myself. 2.) Other judges trickled in to the room. I nearly choked on my coffee when two men that I recognized entered: revered former professors of mine, one chemistry, one biology, of whom I had the utmost respect. Although I loved both of them, I was somewhat anxious since I didn't come within a mile of their scientific knowledge.

I was out of my league.

This guy would have made a proper judge.

We had a quick meeting and went over the judging procedure before we went out to actually start judging. Part of our deliberations included each judge voicing their area(s) of expertise--there were many different categories of science represented at the fair, from environmental science to energy/transportation. I told them my "expertise" was in "Behavioral and Social Science" and "Medicinal and Health Science", those were what I felt most comfortable in anyway. Though I'm fairly well-rounded scientifically, I'm nowhere near an "expert" in any field.

It came time to judge and I planned my route. Luckily, of the two kids representing Computer Science there, one of them did a project on educational video games. Naturally, he was first on my list. The kid, a seventh grader, was something of a prodigy. Going into the details would take too long but trust me when I say this kid was a natural programmer. He later one Best In Show for the Junior Division.

I felt more confident after seeing that kid and proceeded along my route, making my way over to the Behavioral and Social Science section. I won't go through every project but some of them were actually interesting. At least, they asked interesting questions. Their scientific method, for the most part, was awful. And they knew very little about the science behind their projects. When asked scientific questions, many of them stumbled over their words, blushed, and became nervous.

One of them even fainted.

Yes, I can now honestly say that I made a girl faint once. Not sure if I should be proud of that. This girl--poor, timid little thing--had done a project on how well humans can match strange faces to their voices (which was a fairly interesting query, indeed). When I asked her what she thought about something (I forget what), she started to answer it, then promptly fainted into my arms. I caught her on her way down and laid her on the ground, thinking she was out cold. Thankfully, she woke a few seconds later and I helped her sit down in her chair.

A novel experience.

I finished my route without any further faintings. While there were some original ideas and enthusiastic, up-and-coming scientists, when I asked where the idea for their project came from, the vast majority said they found it on the internet. I found this disappointing but not the least bit shocking. It just furthers my fear that kids are thinking less and less. They'd rather just follow some recipe on the internet than actually think about a problem and how they might solve it.

If only more kids were as dedicated as this guy.

That's not to say there weren't some future scientists there. Like my boy, the programming prodigy. And this one girl...

She had an unexpected impact on me.

Near the end of my route (actually, the last project I judged before we turned in to discuss all the projects and decide which ones deserved awards), I had the distinct pleasure of judging a girl in the Plant Science category. As I approached her, she saw me and stiffened, clearly nervous. I perceived her anxiety and made a joke (that I don't remember) as I asked about her project. The joke made her smile but didn't calm her at all. She nervously stumbled through her short presentation.

Her project was amazing.

Not groundbreaking or anything like that, but so thorough, so earnestly done. You could tell she had put everything into this project. She said she loved gardening, which led her to ask a question about plants' sense of direction. If turned upside down, would the plants still grow upward?

Of course, almost all plants do this. I learned in General Biology 2 that plants have these things called statoliths in their root caps that can detect gravity and pretty much tell the plant which way is up. The girl had no idea what a statolith was but she had an inclination, a hypothesis that plants could sense gravity and thus reorient their growth in accordance with the correct "up". So, she set up an experiment to test her hypothesis. I'll spare you the details of it.

But I will say that this girl put her whole heart into this project. She dressed professionally. Her poster was carefully put together and designed in a logical yet eye-catching manner. She even demonstrated her planting/growing procedure with mock materials she brought with, and had three separate booklets with several pictures of how the plants grew and changed direction while they were growing. She was trying her best not to sound too excited when showing me the pictures but I practically smelled it on her and couldn't help but smile. Such enthusiasm for science is a rare thing in kids. A recessive allele. A dying breed.

When it came time to judge the projects, almost unanimously we advocated for the programming wiz to receive Best In Show. But there was less assent for the runner up. We finally whittled it down to two projects, one of which was my favorite gardener's. I had spoken up sparingly, afraid to sound foolish in such celestial company. But when he had to decide between third place--which meant no recognition whatsoever--and second--for which you got a prestigious runner-up award and a trip to State--I couldn't hold my tongue.

I had to say something, though.

I did everything I could to advocate for this girl. I told the room how invested she was in her project, how much time and effort she pored into it and how she deeply, truly, cared for the science of plants. After pleading my case, I realized my legs were twitching uncontrollably and my hands were shaking.

"Okay," one of the leaders said, "anyone object to her getting second?"

A flood of relief and unexpected jubilation nearly drowned me when I saw each person's head shake in turn.

My girl was going to State.

The deliberations lasted until 2:00 and all I had had to eat that day was a few crackers, a mini-bagel and four cups of coffee. I desperately had to pee, my stomach thundered in anger at my lack of nutrition, and I was mentally fatigued.

I hadn't felt that good in a long time.
There's no feeling like the feeling that comes when you know you've made a difference in someone else.
I encourage you to strive for this feeling as often as you can.

So, that was my spring break experience. Not very wild or crazy or exotic, but extremely gratifying.

Hooray for science.