Science Fair

Ugh! It's that time of year that makes me want to crawl back into bed and not come out...it's Science Fair. Nate started looking at projects in November, but all of his ideas seemed beyond the scope and access to our non-scientific family. His first plan was to measure the air quality before and after snowstorms and rainstorms, to see which type of storm did a better job of cleaning the air. That was quickly nixed. Good idea, but no access to the necessary tools to come to a definite conclusion.

Round two he decided to make a maglev train-or for those who are like me and don't know what that is, it is a train that levitates and moves along with the help of magnets and electricity. I loved this idea, but the problem came when Nate's science teacher expected a hypothesis (go figure). We tried for two weeks to think of a hypothesis before we gave up and started looking for another idea. Nate's third idea was to shoot bullets into different types of liquids to see if they stopped the bullet faster or slower. I said "no" right at the start. Nate didn't like that answer and went to his gun advocate father who also said "no." That is probably the first time Steve and I have ever agreed on the subject of guns.

Nate, in desperation, with only three weeks away before science fair, came home from school and said, "If I can't shoot for my experiment, then it has to be something that either explodes or crashes." Hence our last and final idea resulted in helmet safety. Lots of crashes and a few heads that exploded. Not the most original project, and that is why I was surprised that Nate was chosen as one of those to move on to the regional science fair. In the end, after a lot of work and some amazing results (needless to say that all of us will wear helmets for biking, skateboarding and on scooters-the results were enough to scare me into complete submission), I've come to the conclusion that I still hate Science Fair.