Lightning Strikes Twice at Science Fair

Friday, March 5, 2004

Page 15

AT THE SIDE BAR (Column)

Lightning Strikes Twice at Science Fair

By J’AMY PACHECO

I’m no scientist.

Ask me about the elements, and you’ll get a blank look. Quiz me about hypotheses, control groups or anything not having to do with the written language, and I can pretty much guarantee I’ll pass out from ignorance and fall flat on my Bunsen Burners.

How I gave birth to a little girl who apparently has a scientific gene is a mystery to me—perhaps one worthy of scientific investigation. But it happened.

Last year, my then-seven-year-old daughter entered her school’s science fair, won, and went to the district-wide science fair. There, she won “Best of the Best” in the first grade category. It was startling enough to her father and I that we debated putting an image of her plaque on our Christmas cards.

But figuring nobody who knew us would believe our child was capable of earning a scientific award, we opted for a picture of her at Disneyland instead.

This year, when the science fair announcement came home, I thought she’d pass. But the little girl who is now eight and wants to grow up to be a Disney Imagineer insisted upon entering the competition again.

Her first project idea stemmed from the old version of the movie “The Fly.” Remember the part where the scientist, his head attached to the body of a fly, was trapped in a spider web and calling for help?

That’s what she wanted to do. But rather than switching human and insect body parts, she hoped to mix and match houseplant parts with one another.

It sounded like an interesting idea, but she only had about two weeks to pull it off. Then we remembered her last year’s experiment, in which she had grown seedlings.

One the way home from the district fair, we had stopped at the store. While we shopped, her prize-winning experiment dropped dead from the heat in the car. It was tragic.

But every cloud has its silver lining, and she decided for this year’s experiment, she would track temperatures inside the car and outdoors and examine the differences. She would also put “things” in the car to see what would happen to them.

We selected two thermometers. I taught her how to read them—and how to spell the word thermometer. She picked out a philodendron, named him “Bob,” and made a nice home for him in my car’s cup holder. She put crayons in the car, and waited for them to melt. She was ready to make a discovery.

As luck would have it, winter weather arrived just as she began to track temperatures. Under overcast and often rainy skies, she logged insignificant temperature differences—four degrees, 12 degrees—and no real action in the experiment department.

But a week into it, she made a breakthrough. Although it was only 62 degrees outside, the car’s interior rose to 94 degrees, and the crayons started to sweat wax and drip color. You’d have thought she’d found a cure for cancer, so excited were we.

As her due date drew near, she created a hand-drawn project board that included not only a temperature chart, but also the melted crayons, describing their experiences in cartoon speech bubbles.

Her display included a red Barbie car containing two Barbie children and a Barbie dog, also speaking in cartoon bubbles. The children’s bubble said, “When the sun is shining, you car’s like an oven, so don’t leave your kids in the car if you love ‘em.” The pet’s bubble said, “Hey, what about the dog?”

She added Bob—who had thrived living in the automotive greenhouse—to her display, titled her project, “If You Can’t Stand the Heat, GET OUT OF THE CAR!” and lugged the whole unwieldy thing off to school.

When I saw some of the other second grade exhibits, I tried gently to prepare my little scientist for defeat. I reminded her that a win last year held no assurance of a repeat. I quietly hoped she understood, and that she wouldn’t cry.

But the next day, her experiment was selected to go to the district competition—along with the garbage decomposition study done by her best-friend-since-the-age-of-three, Courtney.

And if that weren’t enough to fill a mommy’s heart with happy, on Saturday, the two little girls stood side-by-side on stage and picked up their twin “Best of the Best” plaques from the district competition.

So while I’m no scientist, I have learned two things: it’s not a good idea to leave kids or pets in the car, and lightening does indeed sometimes strike the same place twice.

Even at a science fair!