How can teenagers create such science projects?

[Anonymous]

My spouse started playing around with the ideas that would eventually be his field for his engineering PhD in high school. Did the research he did there lead directly to his thesis? Not exactly, but he did start to develop the love for the subject and begin to think about the problem (material fatigue) back when he was a teen.

So no, it's not perfect but you can start building your basis as a kid. My husband is the first person in his family to go to college so his parents definitely weren't doing the work for him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My spouse started playing around with the ideas that would eventually be his field for his engineering PhD in high school. Did the research he did there lead directly to his thesis? Not exactly, but he did start to develop the love for the subject and begin to think about the problem (material fatigue) back when he was a teen.

So no, it's not perfect but you can start building your basis as a kid. My husband is the first person in his family to go to college so his parents definitely weren't doing the work for him.

This is very different. Your DH had a conception in high school. And it takes years to develop those ideas and prepare himself for skills required in that field, then eventually he reduced it to practice in his PhD years.

[Anonymous]

I could see the edge of the high school STEM star universe in the 1980s.

Some specialized high schools have programs that help high school students develop and conduct research projects aimed at the top science scholarship competitions.

Science museums and some universities have summer science research project programs aimed at high school students.

In the age of the internet, the very best high school students in those programs are often as smart and knowledgeable as good grad students. There’s no reason they can’t pick a good subject and do a nice paper.

Adult scientists in a field might look at the title and the impact rating of the publication and understand why the paper is not really at the same level as a paper a respectable adult researcher would publish, but the paper might sound amazing to us laypeople.

Given how smart and mature those great kids are, it could be that the professors glom onto them and find part-time remote research work for them, instead of hiring them through a cattle call.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My spouse started playing around with the ideas that would eventually be his field for his engineering PhD in high school. Did the research he did there lead directly to his thesis? Not exactly, but he did start to develop the love for the subject and begin to think about the problem (material fatigue) back when he was a teen.

So no, it's not perfect but you can start building your basis as a kid. My husband is the first person in his family to go to college so his parents definitely weren't doing the work for him.

This is very different. Your DH had a conception in high school. And it takes years to develop those ideas and prepare himself for skills required in that field, then eventually he reduced it to practice in his PhD years.

Many adult scientists have an IQ of about 145 and are simply well-organized, bright people who learn easily.

The kinds of kids who typically win the Regeneron scholarships fair and square, without corrupt levels of parental boosting, have an IQ of about 160, could complete college-level workbooks when they were 10, were interested enough in science to get themselves the equivalent of a weak bachelor’s in science by the time they were 14, and were lucky enough to end up in great science programs at places like Stuyvesant or Thomas Jefferson that hooked them up with good research programs. They may not necessarily be any more successful than the IQ145 researchers at age 45, but they they may look a lot more advanced at age 18.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It was interesting to read Bill Gates’ recent memoir about what he was able to learn and create as a young kid. Some kids just have the gumption and drive to do expert-level work at a young age.

Did you read Malcolm Gladwell Outliers? Bill Gates had access to computers due to his mother being on the board. He had more access than Grad Students at universities - Grad Students had to take turns. Gates had a unique advantage.

Gates dropped out of Harvard in the mid 1970s - how many computers do you think were in the country during his Middle/High School years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
All the professors and researchers on this board told you over and over again, it’s not possible. The time commitment requires several years of phd students full time.

So, some of the alleged student geniuses might be cheating, but I think the four actual geniuses in my dorm floor in college were simply much smarter than most grad students and most professors.

They probably couldn’t do a paper that would look good on the vita of a T20 professor, but, if they were in the right field and could pick a simple, narrow topic, of course they could create something patentable and publish a paper in some kind of open access paper farm journal.

And I think this is much more true now, when students can read whatever they want on the internet and see what a good paper looks like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My spouse started playing around with the ideas that would eventually be his field for his engineering PhD in high school. Did the research he did there lead directly to his thesis? Not exactly, but he did start to develop the love for the subject and begin to think about the problem (material fatigue) back when he was a teen.

So no, it's not perfect but you can start building your basis as a kid. My husband is the first person in his family to go to college so his parents definitely weren't doing the work for him.

This is very different. Your DH had a conception in high school. And it takes years to develop those ideas and prepare himself for skills required in that field, then eventually he reduced it to practice in his PhD years.

Many adult scientists have an IQ of about 145 and are simply well-organized, bright people who learn easily.

The kinds of kids who typically win the Regeneron scholarships fair and square, without corrupt levels of parental boosting, have an IQ of about 160, could complete college-level workbooks when they were 10, were interested enough in science to get themselves the equivalent of a weak bachelor’s in science by the time they were 14, and were lucky enough to end up in great science programs at places like Stuyvesant or Thomas Jefferson that hooked them up with good research programs. They may not necessarily be any more successful than the IQ145 researchers at age 45, but they they may look a lot more advanced at age 18.

At least some of the TJ students are not geniuses. They have just asked their dad's friends to get their name on the research. Everyone knows it's not their research except the STS people who look the other way. Otherwise they won't get the funding for their competitions and that means they won't have money for their salaries. Have you looked at the list recently? See what they're doing in 10 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My spouse started playing around with the ideas that would eventually be his field for his engineering PhD in high school. Did the research he did there lead directly to his thesis? Not exactly, but he did start to develop the love for the subject and begin to think about the problem (material fatigue) back when he was a teen.

So no, it's not perfect but you can start building your basis as a kid. My husband is the first person in his family to go to college so his parents definitely weren't doing the work for him.

This is very different. Your DH had a conception in high school. And it takes years to develop those ideas and prepare himself for skills required in that field, then eventually he reduced it to practice in his PhD years.

Many adult scientists have an IQ of about 145 and are simply well-organized, bright people who learn easily.

The kinds of kids who typically win the Regeneron scholarships fair and square, without corrupt levels of parental boosting, have an IQ of about 160, could complete college-level workbooks when they were 10, were interested enough in science to get themselves the equivalent of a weak bachelor’s in science by the time they were 14, and were lucky enough to end up in great science programs at places like Stuyvesant or Thomas Jefferson that hooked them up with good research programs. They may not necessarily be any more successful than the IQ145 researchers at age 45, but they they may look a lot more advanced at age 18.

At least some of the TJ students are not geniuses. They have just asked their dad's friends to get their name on the research. Everyone knows it's not their research except the STS people who look the other way. Otherwise they won't get the funding for their competitions and that means they won't have money for their salaries. Have you looked at the list recently? See what they're doing in 10 years.

It's a public relations campaign for regeneron. Presumably the other competitions are PR campaigns for other organizations or corporations. They run science competitions for high school kids. Some drama queen poster on here has some kind of warped conception of what high School science research involves.

High school kids participate in science research competitions and music competitions and debate competitions and athletic competitions and art competitions and other kinds of competitions. They're for high school students. Rarely does any of it translate into these young people becoming professional athletes or professional musicians or professional scientists, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One sport can keep a kid busy enough with school work …this is surprising .

Imagine if kids put the effort some kids put into travel sports into their science projects. Different kids do different things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My spouse started playing around with the ideas that would eventually be his field for his engineering PhD in high school. Did the research he did there lead directly to his thesis? Not exactly, but he did start to develop the love for the subject and begin to think about the problem (material fatigue) back when he was a teen.

So no, it's not perfect but you can start building your basis as a kid. My husband is the first person in his family to go to college so his parents definitely weren't doing the work for him.

This is very different. Your DH had a conception in high school. And it takes years to develop those ideas and prepare himself for skills required in that field, then eventually he reduced it to practice in his PhD years.

Many adult scientists have an IQ of about 145 and are simply well-organized, bright people who learn easily.

The kinds of kids who typically win the Regeneron scholarships fair and square, without corrupt levels of parental boosting, have an IQ of about 160, could complete college-level workbooks when they were 10, were interested enough in science to get themselves the equivalent of a weak bachelor’s in science by the time they were 14, and were lucky enough to end up in great science programs at places like Stuyvesant or Thomas Jefferson that hooked them up with good research programs. They may not necessarily be any more successful than the IQ145 researchers at age 45, but they they may look a lot more advanced at age 18.

After last year's Regeneron fraud, many became aware of the ethical issues in high school research. It's far more widespread than simply cheating, and for a long time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is how parent involvement in science projects can escalate (own experience). We talk to DD (2nd grade at the time) about the Science Fair at her school. I don't want to ask whether she wants to participate (this would send the message that she could opt out), but rather what she would like to do research on. I don't know how she came up with the idea of Sink or Float (they were likely dropping things in water at school).

We talk about the objects that she wants to test and she comes up with some. The discussion goes to what are those objects made of and whether we can find other objects made from the same material to see how those behave. If you leave it to the 2nd grader, those questions would be unlikely to come up. Is it ethical for a parent to intervene and point out those "research" questions? Some will say that the kid didn't come up with those questions, so it's already not her project anymore. Others will say that beginner researchers always need some guidance and it should be ok if they eventually understand what they are doing and why they are doing it.

The next issue is how we are going to document the results. Simply write them down or offer visual proof? I see this as an opportunity for me to teach my child how to use a camera. We choose a bright spot in the house, DD drops objects in water, then takes a few pictures of each object from different angles (the idea is to select the best picture later). Would she think about taking pictures on her own? Most certainly not. Would she think about taking multiple pictures to be able to trash those that came out unfocused? Certainly not.

Once the "research" was over, we talked about the elephant in the room: why are some objects sinking while others are floating? Have you ever heard about a 2nd grader talking about density? Mine definitely didn't know squat about it. Was I wrong that I seized the opportunity to talk to her about objects with higher and lower density than water sinking and floating, respectively? Was that too much parental involvement? She ended up presenting her "research" and I was proud of how much she learned (operating a camera, objects are made of different materials, each material has its own density, etc.). Would a 2nd grader left to her own devices be able to conduct the "research" this way? That's very unlikely.

I am doing research with graduate students, who also need a lot of guidance (on topics of higher complexity, obviously). I never see anyone coming into the lab knowing exactly what they want to do and how they want to do it. Even as a graduate student, you have to learn the topic, what techniques you have available, how to operate the instrumentation, how to process the data, and how to interpret the results. You don't reach the point where you are able to come up with feasible research ideas without practice and guidance. A teenager patenting a technology that cures cancer is obviously a fraud.

Why is it noy considered fraud to pay a musician or athlete to coach your child, but it's considered fraud to pay a researcher to coach your child on how to do research, the way you coach your grad students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boy oh boy so much bitterness and schadenfreude in the DCUM community - and judging by how all of these striver helicopter parents posting on this thread have such deep and intense animise toward those “getting one over”on the system, here is some advice… its life get used to it!! I think more of the venom comes from the fact that they haven't been able to game the system while other have lol

This goes far beyond nepotism. If fraud is the taken as the norm, "its life get used to it", I have nothing to say. Perhaps that's why we elected a president like Trump.

+1

[Anonymous]

Because musicians don’t claim authorship to the pieces they play. If your child doesn’t say they discovered that cancer cure or invented that drug, then it’s completely legit. They assisted in certain experiments, e.g., raised e. Coli cells in a flask, etc. Or they are highly skillful in western blot, that’s all fine. Great enrichment fostering future scientists and engineers.

[Anonymous]

Their parents probably just gave kids Claude Code sub, lol. Webserver is literally a couple lines of code and neural nets are a matrix multiplication. My kids could care less though so some of it probably comes down to perhaps haing a bit of a hacker mentality. Who knows.

[Anonymous]

It's not fraud. It's this one cranky poster . There was a case of fraud at a science competition and the prize was rescinded. It is no different than that case of fraud with some athlete that pretended to be an athlete and got into college based on that pretense. These are highly unusual fraud events that are not the norm at all. But for some reason this one poster wants to beat on science geeks.

Obviously some students that excel at science research have parents in the field that are helping them learn the skills and learn how to set up projects and giving them access to labs and teaching them how to analyze and manipulate the data and how to write up their results.

If I could do all that I would teach my kid how to do it as well. It's no different than teaching your kid how to play tennis or change a light fixture. Most students involved don't have those kind of advantages and they still manage to begin the process of learning how to do science research.