How can teenagers create such science projects?
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Anonymous
You seem to be implying that all of the thousands of kids that do these science research programs in their high schools are cheaters. I can't speak for everyone, but the science research program that my students were involved in was by far the biggest academic challenge they had in high school. It was a multiple year program that built on each prior year. It required a high level of effort and investment and the return on that was significant. It's fine for there to be programs for science kids just like there are for music kids and sports, kids and math kids and writing kids, etc. |
Anonymous
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It's interesting to see parents argue over these issues. Relying heavily on parental involvement for success often comes at a high cost—it can create long-term dependence. Those who need constant help to succeed may always find themselves needing a boost.
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Anonymous
| If they can explain it, then they are really good with comprehension. And the judges go by that. So if your project is good but awfully bad at speaking, than you lose to them. |
Anonymous
That is true. People have different interests and talents. kids that come from resources get an opportunity to develop their interests. Unlike kids that don't have resources. Plenty of kids don't go to schools that have the opportunity to participate in a science research program. Others don't go to a school that has a baseball team or an orchestra. If you're fortunate enough to be able to expose your children to a quality education, encourage them to take advantage. |
Anonymous
DP. The claim is that the over the top winners of the science fair are getting some help; the claim has never been everyone; we still see classics: on baking, plants and music, to writing complex code. What we are specifically talking about is the kid who is doing PHD level research that requires Grad School understanding of the material. Could this kid exist? Maybe one or two in a century. We're seeing projects that deal with specific anatomical diseases of the brain and nobel prize winning cures. The kid just struggled through the AP Bio test. That's all a vent thread. |
Anonymous
| Are AOs just oblivious or do they close their eyes on this? |
Anonymous
I wouldn't worry too much about it. For a career in science research, you're going to need a PhD and PhD level education is getting driven abroad at this point. Should students also consider doing their undergrad abroad as well as the destruction of our PhD programs is probably going to erode the undergrad science programs as well. Put your time and attention into figuring out that new development. |
Anonymous
| It’s so weird you are so invested in the tour guides life. |
Anonymous
This. Our super smart all-5s, top grades and scores in the hardest classes kid did regular research for one year in high school, had many more hours in their non-academic EC than in the research. They got in to five T15 and picked one of the ivies. Our kid is, based on LOR we were shown later, a one-in-many-years kid, but they are not a one-in-a-century kid, and their research was typical high-school research with a phd, not pay-to-play and no family contact. The few kids we knew with the seemingly far exaggerated research projects had deep nepotism that led to it, and did not get into top schools because they were not top students. Ivy/T10 have a lot of amazingly smart unhooked kids like ours (and a decent cohort of above-average-hooked kids) but far less than 5% are the true one-in-a-century kids. Super smart kids with top scores and grades, with regular high schooler research and some other impactful yet often fairly common ECs or jobs, get into ivies all the time. |
Anonymous
you've got it backwards. Becoming an accomplished musician requires hundreds of very expensive hours of tutoring from expert music tutors regardless of how talented you are, while all the skills and information you need to build a hardware device can be obtained free from the internet by a sufficiently talented builder/hacker |
Anonymous
What are you insinuating? |
Anonymous
High level music and athletics also requires years of skills building and experience. Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fks3PBodyiE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0sLQvuLwxQ |
Anonymous
| The kid linked above works at Neuralink now, btw |
Anonymous
High school research is fraud. |
Anonymous
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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. |