Geek is the New Black, Science Fairs are Where it's At!

About time!

Students at work (eieio1948/stock.xchng)

I remember that science fairs when I was growing up, were anything but exciting.  The three I projects I remember doing as a child, involved studying the effects of coffee on human teeth, building a simple stress test, and calculating the number of tiles that was in a local mall.  Yeah, I was a little lazy back then, but, science fairs really didn't offer much for kids to work with back then.

A few years ago, I volunteered at science fair, as a PhD to talk to students about their projects, and was presently surprised at the diversity and intelligence of the projects.  They were far above what I saw in my childhood.  Science has come far for students and it is important to encourage them further. 

Now science fairs and students are advancing in leaps and bounds. According to a TV news report Hip to be square: Science fairs evolve 'coolness' and global impact, science fairs have gone way beyond simple experiments about plant growth, and now have students focusing on real-life problems including cancer treatments, virtual reality, new energy resources, etc.

This is pretty cool; maybe one day we'll have science fairs like they do in Eureka.  If you have never watched Eureka, might I suggest doing so.  One of the coolest, funniest science-fiction television shows presently on TV on the SyFy channel.

In the show, Eureka is a town full of bumbling geniuses dealing with incredible technology.  Now imagine the science fair of the local high school in such a town; a mixture of incredible discoveries and potentially disastrous consequences. 

Well, perhaps we shouldn't hope for science fairs to actually turn out like they do in Eureka.  I like my life.