[TheForge] Science fair project

Wed Nov 6 14:51:00 2002

They taught us in my school in 3rd grade

Chad

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bruce Freeman
Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2002 9:20 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Science fair project

What many, if not most, people don't understand about science fair
projects is that they are not supposed to be demonstrations, they are
supposed to be experiments.  Some science teachers don't even know this.
This is a sore point with me because I'm a scientist and apply the
scientific principal every day and think it's a great disservice to the
community that it doesn't get taught on the elementary school level.  It
ain't that hard to understand.

1) Form a testable hypothesis, based upon available knowledge.
2) Design an experiment that will test that hypothesis.
3) Perform the experiment, often including a "control."
4) Review the results of the experiment, including an examination of
whether the experiment did indeed test what it was supposed to have
tested.

In reviewing both the existing knowledge and the results of the
expeiment, we apply "Occam's Razor", which is a rule that tells us that
if there are two alternative explanations for a set of facts, the
simpler explanation IS correct.  (Note:  It DOESN'T say "is more likely
to be correct.")

Now that might SOUND complicated, but it isn't. =20

To gain a better understanding of how the scientific principal is
applied, it is well to read about simple scientific experiments.  A
biography of Louis Pasteur, who investigated fermentation and spoilage
of wine and milk, can be useful.  In his time, it was still believed by
many that organisms arose spontaneously in foods, etc. Early on, for
instance, maggots were believed to naturally arise in spoiling meat.
The fact that flies laid eggs on the meat which hatched into maggots
hadn't been observed.  By Pasteur's time, I believe these ignorant
forces were on the retreat, but the were still holding sway in arguments
about microorganisms.  Since we know now that microorganisms cause food
spoilage and disease, it was an important step to find the truth in this
matter.  Pasteur did so in an elegantly simple series of experiments.
Since I read his biography many years ago, I couldn't propose to repeat
them here, but any good library will have such a biography.

In brief, Pasteur's hypothesis was that all organisms arise from
previously existing organisms.  This is obvious for higher animals and
plants.  It can be fairly easily proven for smaller ones like
flies/maggots.  For microorganisms, which cannot be directly observed
except with elaborate apparatus, it was really NOT so unreasonable to
believe in that such organisms arose spontaneously.  To show otherwise,
Pasteur had to practically invent the concept of microbial sterility.

Going on to a related example, Robert Koch, who I understand was an
ordinary physician of his day, proved that anthrax was caused by
contagion from an infected animal in a monumental paper based upon very
simple science.  Escerpts of this paper can be read here:
http://ce.ecn.purdue.edu/~piwc/w3-history/koch/koch-anthrax.html  This,
by the way, is a learned paper.  Koch was obviously familiar with the
scientific literature of his day, and well educated in the sciences.
But that education alone does not constitute science.  It is the simple
experiments he recounts that are the body of his science.  Some of these
are so simple he doesn't even state the hypotheses.  For example, when
he innoculates one mouse from another in a long series, he is testing an
unstated hypothesis of alternation of generations.  Unless you're
trained in biology, you might not even KNOW about alternation of
generations. =20

The difficult part will be to encorporate blacksmithing into a science
project.  I don't say it's impossible, but it might be difficult.

The best bet might be to prove something that's already known =AF but =
not
necessarily known by 10-year olds.  In other words, let your son ask a
question, then come up with a way of testing it.   Be careful that the
way to test it really will test it.

Bruce
NJ

>>> [email protected] 11/05/02 04:41PM >>>
My 10 year old son is going to do a science fair project soon. He
frequently helps me at the forge and also likes to do his own little
jobs. I thought that it would be a good idea to do his project on
blacksmithing as no one at his school has done a project on this subject
in recent past (that we know about).
My question would be: does any one know of a good project for him, or
any recourses we could use? Please keep in mind that he is ten years
old, and I want him to pretty much do the job him self with only my
supervision.
Thanks in advance
John Kellough

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