Fun at the Fair. An American Tradition

Around this time of year us "American" parents are plagued involved with their children's Science Fair. The idea is that the children pick a science-based topic and then put together a presentation, demonstration, or experiement to share with everyone else on the planet at school. My teens both did it and their projects ran the gamut from fingerprints, and rainbows, to how a violin works. At our school it is completely voluntary, and indeed, some kids don't participate. They don't get "extra marks" for it or any other accolades so - no pressure. Except someone needs to tell the parents.

The Science teachers sent our the annual memo gently explaining that this is a KIDS' PROJECT, ie. parents, leave them alone to do their own bloody science project. Every year we get at least one project that has blatantly not had an ounce of child participation. For starters, the child is nowhere to be seen at the booth, or can't explain a thing about it to anyone interested, because it wasn't their idea and they played no part in its development. Last year it was a ten foot papier mache mammoth tusk, reinforced on the inside with chicken wire. The children responsible for this museum-quality exhibit were 6 and 8. This year we had the entire solar system hanging from a coat-hanger creation. Each planet was in perfect proportion to the sun, and circumnavigated another planet, sun or star as it was supposed to. SOme of the planets looked lilke they were illuminated from the inside but I might have been imaginging that in my fury. The child involved couldn't even  name the planets let alone impart any information about them.

Anyhoo, since the age gap between the Little Guy and his sibs is rather large, it's been a while since I've had to do been involved in a Science Fair. I spent weeks trying to persuade him that at 6, perhaps he was a bit too young, but in vain. His chosen topic was amphibians and let me tell you, there's quite a lot you can do on amphibians. (Frogs and toads are amphibians. "Amphibian" means double life. They start off in water, with gills, and then come onto land and breathe through lungs.)

Poor kid didn't realise quite what he'd taken on with a mother who was determined he do 99% of it. I made sure he understood all about them and chose the bits of information to go up on the board. He typed everything himself (which took about three consecutive days), glued on most of the bits and pieces, and even made clay models. (See below). Since they were doing an in-class presentation the next day, I also made sure that he could talk intelligently about his topic.

My, did I create a monster. He knew his topic inside out and gave everyone who even looked in our direction a five minnute talk about the three groups of amphibians, complete with plastic ruler as a pointer and introductory phrases such as "Well, you may not know that...", and "Of course not all amphibians....".
At one point he turned to me and said "This is great" and I know he wasn't talking about the science part. There's a reason we call him Broadway Joe in our house.

This is him telling one of the science teachers all about poison dart frogs, complete with plastic ruler for emphasis. (They sweat poison when they get scared and they get their name because Native American hunters used to put the poison on the end of their spears and darts.)

The Display is called "Amphibians - Double Agents", by the way. Always a touch of drama.

These are the models made from non-hardening clay. We probably should have used-hardening clay because the legs fell off the frog (scary looking yellow thing in the middle) if you so much as touched it.















I'm going to start whispering in his ear at night, in a bid to get out of it next year. Bad mother!

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