Outnumbered Two to One

Nothing against the scientific method itself. Really, I know it’s responsible for a lot of modern advancements - microwaves, penicillin, espresso machines. But man oh man, my brain is so not wired for stuff like that. I’m less of a scientist, more of a free thinker, occasionally a non-thinker if I’ve had a particularly harrowing day and opted to sit down for a little tete-e-tete with my pal DVR.

Growing up I never crafted a science project of my own. It was always a requirement, every year, I just never understood 100% how to go about throwing one together, and my mother…let’s just say her parenting methods were a little hands off. Neither one of us minded the series of effs on my report cards much, so not plunging waist deep in to science was more than acceptable.

My strategies are a little different of course, I want my kids to excel in school. Their successes are my successes. Their first place ribbons, are my first place ribbons. (Really, I stockpile them in a giant tupperware under the bed.) So, we don’t opt out of science projects at our house, but every year I’m convinced these lengthy and detailed assignments are more of a task for the parents than for the children - the gathering of supplies, of research, of presentation materials, it’s like an extensive scavenger hunt my child would not be able to attempt without me to chauffeur her around and foot the bill. Then there’s that whole experimentation process with a minimum of three trials!

I’m whining, I know.

This year I’ve got two to do. One for fifth grade, one for eighth. My teen decided on a plant growth experiment, which of course involves growing plants, something I’m tragically bad at. So far we’ve gone through about 20 garden bean saplings, that are currently part of the circle of plant life thanks to my black thumb. My tween is equally baffled, for her we settled on a relatively simple project involving muffins and the manipulation of baking powder in a basic recipe.

Now here’s a project I can get used to, except I’ve got to make four dozen muffins of varying degrees of edibility. That’s a lot of dirty pots and pans, my friends. And we’ve got to measure these suckers, sample their textures, take photographs and create bar graphs.

Way to suck the fun out of a muffin Scientific Method.

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