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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]

Your DD’s project was jointly done by you and her. Nobody is saying we shouldn’t teach our kids things. You could have taught her all of those things without it being part of a science fair. But you were involved, you steered her, you shaped her experiment, you told her how to document it, and you “helped” her figure out what her results meant. That’s not independent research, and that level of involvement a little higher up with bigger stakes would be cheating.  [/quote]

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