Earlier today I had the pleasure to meet with some of the brightest New York City high school students as a judge for the preliminary round of the 2015 New York City Science and Engineering Fair (NYCSEF). These students were awesome! Before going to the posters and meeting with the students, judges were given their score sheets and abstracts. Upon reading the abstracts, my peers and I (9 NYCEP students joined me in judging this year) found ourselves googling terms and explaining different statistical methods to each other. After reading through these brief synopses we found ourselves probably as nervous to talk to the exemplary students as they were to be judged by us.

It was amazing to feel the energy in the room – young 14-18 year olds excited, proud, and anxious all at the same time. While some had reached out to work with college professors and other researchers, others had made it to the fair with their own ideas and work.

I tried to ask questions not only about their results, but also the project’s genesis and inspiration. It so happened to be that the four projects I judged this year were all done by students flying solo. While I think the students who presented work from a larger project out of a research lab are just as admirable, these four young women I judged today taught me something about how to involve high school students into the sciences.

1. Just stop and take a look at the world around you.

At the heart of all four projects I judged today were initial observations these students made about the world around them. One student worked in adult/senior assisted living communities and noticed a relationship between those patients with conditions that affected their mental faculties and early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Another we left handed and wondered if handedness related to different ways to memorize things. There was a student who learned about the wave of social activism in the 1960’s and 1970’s and wondered why college students today are less politically active. Finally, a student wondered how and why she was different from her sisters and friends, so she investigated the relationship between parenting style and certain personality traits, teasing away at the nature vs. nurture debate.

I was blown away at how inquisitive the were about things in their everyday lives. So many times in our everyday lives we make observations of the world around us. Sometimes an unusual observation turns into a speculative conversation among friends. In more heated situations we may consult the small metal brick in our pockets with connections to the entirety of human knowledge (aka Google). But more often than not the search for the answer is dropped. I was inspired to see so many students actively trying to understand the world around them, which brings me to my next point…

2. We need to emphasize what we don’t know.

I wonder how many great questions are abandoned offhand just from the assumption that it is already known? As children we thought that our parents, older siblings, and teachers had all the answers. We spend 12 grades trying to learn (read: memorize) all these things that others have discovered about the world. But in that drive and push towards memorizing what has been done, there is a loss for what is still left to do. We implicitly assume that if it’s unknown it must be too complicated to find out the answer.

That way of thinking can be so crippling. Even as a PhD student I am left wondering what to choose for my dissertation topic. It can feel like everything is already done. But science isn’t the sum of all answers, it is the process of asking questions. I was so happy to see these students go forward, collect their own data, answer their own questions, and then compare their findings to those of others who have come before. I felt that they understood that they were contributing to the scientific process.

3. Null results are still results.

Finally, I was impressed at how many of the participants handled “no results.” By “no results” I mean no significant results. The students I judged we’re discouraged or embarrassed about it – they either bounced back with, while there was no significant difference this group was greater in value than that, per my hypothesis, or otherwise embraced the fact that what they learned was that two things are not related.

In the real world, knowing two things are not related, like autism and vaccines, can be as important as knowing that two things are, like cholesterol and heart disease. As a “professional” scientist I see months of hard work and data collection discarded when the results show no significant relationships. We want the Nature or Science paper and the New York Times write up – not some technical note that students will stumble upon and be grateful that they too won’t waste their time. Those technical notes are useful, and knowing what is and is not connected is informative for understanding how the world works.

All in all I would say this was a successful Sunday morning, for the participants who I hope are all encouraged to continue into STEM fields, and for me, as I remember the roots of science that made me want to be a scientist.

For anyone reading this who is either interested in participating, mentoring, or judging for the science fair next year information can be found here. The preliminary round was held today at the City College of New York. The top 25% of judged projects will move onto the finals round held at the American Museum of Natural History on March 24th. Approximately 20 of the finalists will represent New York City in Intel’s International Science and Engineering Fair held in Pittsburg, PA this May.