News Herald – Juliann Talkington
Thinking of having yogurt for lunch or soybeans for dinner? Then put on your lab coat and goggles and make sure the laboratory eye wash station is available. Yes, your kitchen needs to have a special Biosafety Laboratory 1 safety rating.
Considering a refreshing dip into the pool? Be advised, swimsuits create a drowning risk.
Shut down the gyms and the swimming pools, close the beaches, and require everyone to wear non-breathable shoes! Foot bacteria is life threatening.
Quick! Collect the iPads, the iPhones, and the portable computers. The specially engineered shatterproof glass in these devices is such a severe safety risk these devices cannot be used in a public setting.
Crazy!? These are all REAL barriers that have impacted local students interested in participating in the science fair.
To add insult to injury, one twelve year old student had to redo her science fair research plan thirteen times and repeat her entire experiment to comply with science fair committee requirements even though there were no PhD microbiologists on the committee and the student had a PhD microbiologist advising her.
In other cases, students take on innovative engineering work under the supervision of registered professional engineers only to have their project plans rejected. Interestingly, professional engineers are certified by the state for technical and safety proficiency.
Sadly some of the “rejected” projects are cutting edge research that would bring acclaim to the county, state and U.S. if the students were just allowed to complete the research and present the data in reasonable ways.
Even more tragic, this type of irrational review and project rejection can impact a student’s interest in science and kill his/her creative spirit. Science should be creative, fun, interesting, and challenging — not irrational, bureaucratic and boring..
No wonder kids hate science and many scientifically gifted students choose other careers.
In an era where most good jobs require a strong understanding of math and science and the US is dropping in world innovation rankings, we need to think carefully about what we are communicating to our kids.
Perhaps the government needs to reconsider its strategy. Instead of spending millions on programs for scientists and engineers to talk with kids, maybe all we need to do is remove the barriers so our teachers can encourage creative, scientific thinking and real world scientists and engineers can mentor. Then kids could learn the truth about science! It IS creative, fun and interesting.