[ExI] 5th Grade Science Fair -- Evolution

[spike]

>... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson
Subject: [ExI] 5th Grade Science Fair -- Evolution

>...Friday, I went to my son's 5th grade science fair. It was really a lot
of fun watching these young kids get excited about experimentation. My son
was chosen to progress to the district (no surprise there, we have been
working hard on our experiment) and is very excited by the prospect...-Kelly
_______________________________________________

Since Kelly talks about his son's science fair, I get to talk about mine.

My son did a project on measuring the power from a solar panel we use to
keep the batteries topped up on our camper.  The ad says it produces five
watts peak, so we took him out with a digital meter, had him measure open
loop voltage and short circuit current, then multiply those two to get
power.  He got a little less than four watts peak in every case, under ideal
conditions.

He was the only kindergartner there, so we were not going to have him pitch.
He had decided he didn't want to, when we got to the regional and there were
about 600 or so people there.  So he and I went and listened to the pitches.
He saw one kid after another pitch their projects, and several were doing
something wrong, such as holding the mic too far from their mouth so we
couldn't hear a word.  Others were facing away from the audience.  Others
wandered off on some trivial detail.

After watching a dozen of these, my son turned to me and said he wanted to
pitch, so I signed up him.  He stood tall up there, held the mic right up to
his mouth and spoke in clear, distinct, grammatically correct sentences,
explained how he measured open voltage, short current, multiplied to get
power, and found his panel came up a watt short.  He stayed right on topic,
didn't wander, got right to the point, got off the stage.  Of course my
father-figure buttons nearly off popped.  That's what my son calls me,
father figure.  Heh, what a kid.

I hope he becomes a science fair champion.

spike