Judge

It’s been a fun day at the kids’ school, where I was helping to judge science projects this morning.

I have great news: the future of the scientific world is in safe hands. Whether it is adopting a certain diet to aid concentration in examinations (chocolate seemed to work well), testing to see how batteries deal with thermal stress (limited ill effects despite being deep frozen), or finding out how best to kill plants with household chemicals (vinegar > bleach, apparently), they’ve got it all covered.

There was no shortage of novel ideas and a great deal of enthusiasm around how to practically apply the work that they had done – especially the chocolate one. And I was really very impressed by the confidence of the kids during their interviews: well prepared, good clear answers, excellent eye contact, willing to elaborate. These guys were only 12 years old. It bodes well.

Tomorrow, my daughter takes her project in for display, but obviously, I don’t get to judge that one. Still, since it didn’t involve any chocolate, I don’t feel that I’m missing out too much.