Science Projects by Parents...er, students!
 

The annual science project fair for grades 1 & 2 at my son's elementary school. Note, I say elementary. So what comes to mind? Ideas which the 1st and 2nd graders can understand and hence create projects of. My son participated and his project idea was "how plants grow". As parents, we made sure that he did most of the project and we only helped him with taking a print out of his written work on the computer, which by the way was typed by him, and buying all the raw materials of course.

Upon reaching the hall where all the projects were displayed I couldn't help but wonder whether the fair should have been called "Science Projects by the Parents of the students for the students!" Some of the projects were shouting out that they were completely done by the parents with little involvement of the students. I give due respect to the parents who put in all their time and effort into the projects.Then there were other projects which we handled and done very well by the 1st and 2nd graders. One could tell that they understood their topic thoroughly. To me, these were the winners!

At first I thought that my son's project looked way too simple to demand any attention at all, but then again I realized that that was a good thing because it looked like something done by a 1st grader. It is funny how parents, myself included, can get so competitive at times and forget that the best gift you can give your children is the gift of skills required to helping them learn on their own by they experimenting for their own, asking questions, making mistakes,raising doubts, etc. It is a rat race out there for sure, but let us give our children the freedom to expand those wings of knowledge and only nudge them oh so gently so they can glide gracefully through the skies!

You can have a look at some of the projects by visiting this link :

http://picasaweb.google.com/anjaliforamit/ScienceProjectStevensCreek2010#