Who am I to judge?

Tomorrow I'll be taking a few hours away from work to build something important: the self-esteems of a handful of middle-school-aged children.

I'm volunteering as a judge in a middle-school science fair. And even though I'm not a scientist ("computer science" isn't a category), I understand enough about physical science and the scientific method to contribute to the event. If you ever get a similar opportunity, take it! It's fun for you and rewarding for students. Here is a useful guide for how to be an effective judge.

I've participated in this event in previous years, but this year is different for me: one of the middle-school students is my 6th-grade daughter. Of course, I won't serve as a judge for her age group so there will be no chance for impropriety. However, I have enjoyed watching my daughter work on her project, from the time when it was just an idea (well, several ideas) to seeing the completed work. Like any parent would, I helped (when asked) with a few logistics, but the content is one-hundred-percent hers.

I'll admit that it was a little painful for me to watch as she recorded her results in Excel, summed and averaged the numbers, created tables and built graphs. It's so easy to veer off into the weeds of formatting and colors and lose the real content. Readability is important, and so is an attractive presentation. But nothing is more important than an accurate portrayal of your results. (And no, I didn't try to convince her to use SAS; that would be too overbearing.)

I know you're wondering: what was my daughter's project? Here's what it's not:

Can you teach a hamster to dance to music when food is on the line? (We don't have a hamster, let alone another hamster that would be needed as a control. I think this was an end-run effort to get a hamster in the house.)

Does the time of day that you were born have an effect on how early a riser you tend to be? (If that's the case, I think that most teenagers were born after noon.)

The real project: which brand of soda reacts more when you add Mentos to it: Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi? It won't win a Nobel prize, but it is testable and measurable. What's your hypothesis? Add it to the comments, with your reasoning. Then I'll follow up with my daughter's observations.