One of the major annual events of my calendar for much of my adult life has been science fair season. It is the time of the year when students across our region and the entire nation engage in devising a science project to be presented at a class, school, regional, or national science exhibition.
It is a competitive exercise which sometimes turns people off. After all, who is to say one student's efforts are better than another? How do you compare the student who builds a hovercraft out of a vacuum cleaner with the one studying nematodes in winter soil?
But science fairs are designed to reward good science, period. For the most part, students do not compete against each other. They strive to meet certain metrics which measure the depth and breadth of scientific content in their project. Science fairs are intended to ensure each student comes away from the experience having gained knowledge and understanding.
Of course, in talking about science fairs with students or their parents, one of the first questions asked is "what makes it science?" Like many terms in our society, "science" is one we all use but it means slightly different things to different people. For me, science is inherently linked to the way we have always explored our world.
For example, suppose someone was to ask if you like rhubarb-and-pistachio flavoured ice cream. Having never tried it your response might be "I don't know." At this point, you could do the experiment and take a taste. You might decide it is "delicious" or "disgusting" or find you "need another bite to be sure" but you would come up with some form of conclusion out of the experiment. In effect, you would be completing the steps of the scientific method.
You would have an observation - a bowl of rhubarb-and-pistachio flavoured ice cream in front of you. You would formulate an experiment - taste a spoonful. You would make observations about the experiment and you would draw a conclusion.
It would certainly be an interesting experiment to try and might make a nice science fair experiment for a student, with an underlying hypothesis of "is all ice cream good, regardless of the flavours involved?"
But by itself, tasting a bowl of rhubarb-and-pistachio flavoured ice cream one time falls short of science. While the procedure is our natural approach to exploring the world, to really become science two other elements are necessary.
The first is reproducibility. Can the experiment be done over and over and over again with the same results? This is the hardest part of science, although it is easier for some disciplines than other. For example, making a chemical compound a second time generally involves mixing everything in the same fashion again. (It doesn't always work out though!)
Good science is reproducible. The same experiment produces the same results. Or at the very least, repeating the experiment over and over results in a statistically significant finding. For example, testing a class of students on their ability to shoot free throws will result in a statistical distribution of abilities but it is important that if the test is done a second or third time, the same sort of distribution is observed. Everyone doesn't have to get the same score but the overall pattern should be the same.
The requirement for reproducibility is one of the most difficult for new scientists to understand. After all, if you get a positive result, why would you try the experiment again? It might not work the second time! But that is the whole point.
The other major requirement for science is transferability. Can someone else repeat the experiment and get similar results? In the case of our ice cream, the answer is likely to be quite different. But if enough people were to taste the ice cream, a pattern would emerge and if it is good science then the pattern should be observable if a completely different group of people are used to repeat the experiment.
All of this is to say that we are in science fair season. The experiments young students across the region can engage in are as varied as the students themselves. Some might be interested in understanding what happens to insects in winter. Others might want to build a 3D immersive computer game. All sorts of science fair experiments will be on display in the coming months.
But to be good science fair experiments, they need to demonstrate the elements of reproducibility and transferability.
Please help to support your local school and your children in their efforts in the coming months. Take part in a science fair if your school offers one. And come enjoy the energy and efforts of our students at the annual Central Interior Science Exhibition on April 1st at the UNBC Bentley Science Centre.
