two posts in one: "human experiments" and "Melissa's party"

My mother in law was the science coordinator at a school for several years. One of her responsibilities was to run the annual science fair for the school. She would recruit people as judges for the science fair each year. I did this several times and I learned a few things about elementary school science projects.


*they need to include Hypothesis, procedure, materials, data, conclusion, research and acknowledgements

* they should not be a survey(i.e. "the most popular soda in 6th grade")

*they should not be a display (i.e. "an erupting volcano")

*and they definately should NOT be experiments performed on humans



When Alex decided he wanted to do his science fair project on "Which drink is best before physical activity" , the science fair judge in me saw all sorts of issues with it.

"How can you prove this without testing humans?"

"How would you measure the data?"

"There are to many variables"

etc etc



He and I went round and round about this, I highly recommended he select another project, he highly recommended I let him do what he wanted to do for HIS project. After getting exasperated from not being able to change his mind, I did what every good mom would do, I told him to ask his teacher..(surely SHE would shoot the idea down and THEN I would help him come up with a better idea)


He asked his teacher, she allowed the project. I backed off and began my duties as "Alex's goffer for science fair project". I checked the list "milk, gatorade, soda, display board"...his plan went as follows: he would consume 8 ounces of one of the liquids(water also) and run as far as he could. He would measure not only the distance he ran after consuming the liquid, but how many cramps he would get! Thats right...he was inducing cramping as part of his experiment! He would have to repeat this 4 times for each drink and 4 times for no drink. He ran over 2 laps( 600 feet) after drink number one, and he had to repeat this 19 more times! All I could think was, "I tried to tell him that this experiment wasn't such a good idea", but I had lost the battle and now I just had to sit back and watch this crazy kid tortue his own body for science.



I was chuckling inside as I said "ok, so you are going to drink 8 ounces of milk in this heat, and then run as far as you can?" His reply was a very proud and cheerful "yup!"



he enlisted his siblings for support and they all chased him as he ran, but even they got tired after a few laps. In the end his findings were as follows..


After graphing all the data he discovered that drinking soda before physical exercise induced cramps. Drinking milk before physical exercise induced cramps. Drinking nothing was ok, but then you would be really thirsty afterwards. Drinking water worked the best with no cramping.


I was reminded of an important lesson with this science fair project. The mom in me did not want Alex to do this project for a few reasons:



*I didn't want him to get a bad grade

*I didn't want him to have to subject himself to physical hardships in order to do this project

*Having judged a lot of projects, I just didn't think it was that good when he mentioned it to me and I wanted him to do something that he could be proud of




What I Learned from this project;


*He is more proud of it if he does the whole thing himself

*just because I wouldn't want to subject myself to drinking milk and running on a hot day doesn't mean I should prevent my kid from doing it (he loved it!)

*As much as I try to keep my little ones under my wings they need room to make decisions.

*Even though we can say a hundred times "soda isn't good for you...blah blah blah" , sometimes it's ok for kid's to figure stuff out themselves

*I really enjoyed taking a backseat and watching his creativity come to life with his project

*He took full credit for his grade, a 95%!

Melissa's Birthday

Melissa wanted her birthday "party" to be in the tree house. (I know, I know enough with the tree house already!!) but she was so excited and it was actually kinda cute to do her party out there! Shawn brought out the kiddie table and we had pizza and salad. The kids did a pinata and Melissa opened gifts. We came back inside for cake and ice cream.

Little lady opening her gifts

Grandma Holder, Shawn, Alex and David

Dale (thrilled that I snapped a picture of him with the Hannah Montana pinata)

Melissa with her "take"

Melissa out of breath after trying to blow out the trick candles. (mean mommy!)