Starts with K
There’s nothing like an elementary school science fair to make an adult feel … dumb.
I’ve covered many of them in my 30-plus years as a reporter, but I never cease to be amazed by the projects – and the kids who display them.
That was the case again last week in Blooming Prairie as I made my way around the gym in the elementary school.
It was just moments before judging was set to begin, and for the most part, these students were cool as cucumbers.
Cora Stoen, for example, had some valuable advice for an old reporter who has dropped her lip color in her lap – more than once – while driving to an assignment.
As a fifth-grader, Cora isn’t doing much driving, or wearing much lip color, “but I have to wear it for my dance competitions,” she said.
Rubbing alcohol, it turned out, works best for removing lipstick from a cotton garment. While the evidence remained, it did a much better job than just water.
Cora and I were both surprised that the coconut oil didn’t do a better job; she already had an idea about how to improve her project.
Then there was Ethan Hullopeter, whose project intimidated me so much that I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him about it.
His family is building a house, and Ethan used that grand project as a starting point for his science fair project about trusses and joists.
Trusses and joists, folks.
I don’t want to brag, but I have no idea what they are or what they do. Something with building a house, apparently.
I kid – somewhat – but my knowledge stops at the fact that they have to do with the roof and the floors? I think?
Big things are in Ethan’s future, I suspect, not unlike the other 30 or so students who chose to do a science project this year.
I, too, did science fair projects – because I had to. They were mandatory in middle school, and I was way out of my league.
I didn’t love science, so I knew whatever I did had to be simple. I was definitely not going to be breaking new ground.
This was back in the *cough* mid 1970s, and people were getting serious about, of all things, house plants.
Though I didn’t love science, I did love to read, and nerdy, sixth-grade Kay had read about a study that indicated talking to plants was beneficial.
Cool. I sawed the tops off four pint-size milk cartons and planted grass seed in all of them. Same soil, same depth, same everything. Watered them the same amount, at the same time.
Every day at 7 p.m., I carried the carton marked with an angry face into our spare bedroom and closed the door – then unleashed on it. “You’re a stupid, stupid plant, and you’ll probably never even grow any bigger than you are right now! Are your parents ashamed of you? If I get a bad grade on this project, it’s going to be your fault!”
Then I carried the plant back to the windowsill where the others sat, and repeated the exercise with a carton marked with a smiling face and a carton marked with a heart. The carton with a big zero on its front never left the sill. He was my control plant.
The routine never varied. I spoke conversationally with the smiley-face plant, in a normal tone of voice, usually just telling him about my day.
I spoke lovingly, quietly, to my heart plant. I whispered to him that he was the strongest, most handsome plant I knew, and that if I got a good grade on the project, it would be because of him.
Full disclosure: My mother was very concerned the first time she heard me yelling at my angry-face plant. We had a long talk about “hidden frustrations,” because my mom was nothing if not ahead of her time.
But you guys: I won the science fair that year, including Best of Show. No lie. Apparently, the judges didn’t read the same things I did, and thought I was very creative. My science teacher was as surprised as I was.
The angry-face plant was far and away the healthiest of the four, and I had no idea why – though I later learned it had something to do with the amount of carbon dioxide I was blasting at it.
And when I say “later,” I mean, like, decades later. Winner or not, I still don’t love science.
Science fairs, on the other hand …