11-25-08 - Science Fair Judging

Wow. What a wonderful experience. There were so many great projects. I was assigned to judge some of the eighth grade projects. In the categories that I judged, we had some amazing projects. While talking to the students, I felt a little dumb. These students know so much information on their topics and did some amazing experiments; most of the time the information was well beyond my knowledge of the topic. I just hope that their work, that goes way beyond the expectations, does not discourage other students to participate in the science fair. I believe that this is such a great experience for students, and I would hate for them to get discouraged by the exceptional work of others. Many of the other projects were also very good, but they get less attention because of the amazing work of others. I am grateful that I was able to have this experience. I really enjoyed myself and the students taught me a lot about the topics of their projects. There were a wide variety of projects, and all had their own interesting twist. It was also great to see these students’ excitement about science.