I HATE Science

I've never liked science. Except for a small stint in 8th or 9th grade when I had French Science. Yes, you read that right - French Science. It was the regular curriculum for whatever grade I was in, but the quizzes and everything were in French. The teacher even spoke French sometimes, which he then had to translate - since very few of us were aces at the language.

I liked this teacher A LOT and he made Science fun. I was sad when I heard that he passed away just a few months ago. He was one of those teachers that just made an impact in my life. Otherwise, Science was always BORING!

So imagine how thrilled I was when Tanis brought home a note in the middle of January telling us that all 5th graders HAD to participate in the Science Fair. BUGGER! What ever happened to letting kids choose to participate? Anyway, so he brings this note home in the middle of January and the Science Fair was the second week in February. We figured we had a bit of time and we'd work on it the following weekend.

Well, the following weekend came and went and Eric and I forgot all about it. Eric had this idea about doing something with the taste of water planned out, but we just forgot about it.

Then 2 days before the Science Fair someone posted something about it on Facebook and I was so angry that I had forgotten. We now had 2 days to get something pulled together. Ay yi yi.

Eric still wanted to do his water thing, but since I had to do all the immediate research for it, I wanted something a bit easier. Plus let's face it - Eric doesn't even get home until 7 every night, so the project was up to me at this point. So, I went online to www.sciencebuddies.org, which the paper had mentioned as a place to go for ideas and I found something that would hopefully keep Tanis and I interested. I changed it a bit so that we weren't copying the thing EXACTLY. I still wanted to make it a bit our own.

Tanis was super excited for the actual testing of his project as he got to call a bunch of family members. But doing everything else was just boring for him. I made him look at a few websites and had him write down the things he thought were interesting. I then pulled all that info into a report that made some sort of sense, which he then typed out. Because we had slacked off, I put the posterboard together while he was typing out the report.

I was glad to have it done with and only made sure it was done so that it wouldn't affect his grade. He doesn't have the greatest grade in math, but his science grade was good and I didn't want that to be another subject with a low grade. Otherwise, I wouldn't have messed with it!

This is Tanis' project. Hopefully you can see the picture well enough that you get the idea. If you are still curious, you can email me or something and I'll give you the details.... ;)

So we go over to the school the night of the Science Fair and hang out for an 1 1/2 while waiting for the judging. It was fun to see that a few kids from the ward - who did the Science Fair because they wanted to - win 1st and 2nd place awards. Of course Tanis didn't get one. He felt bad and as we were walking home I explained to him that it wasn't really fair for him to get an award with 2 days of work, when other kids spent weeks on it. He was okay with that and understood that.

The next day he comes home with this:


This Honorable Mention means that he is able to go on to the District Science Fair. Now, I would've left it alone at this point, but Eric thought we should let Tanis go onto the district level and Tanis really wanted to do it. So, I was outvoted.

Now, we just have to wait until March 1st and then we get to spend all night at a District Science Fair. Lucky us, right? Oh well, at least my lil' sis' lives right by the high school it's at, so we can go bug her during the downtime. (Aren't you excited Kaeloni?) And we are giving our kid a chance to do something he wanted to do.

Here's to Science! And yes, I still HATE it!!!