Bronson was glowing when he came home from school today. He almost hugged me he was so happy he got to join the Biohazard Team. The next words out of his mouth were, "One of the guys says his dad can get us some real plutonium!"
I told him that this sounded a bit too good to be true, but we agreed that it is fabulous that the Stella Rondo Elementary School Science Fair encompasses such real life, hands-on science (although I made sure he understands that no one should really touch plutonium!).
This is all wonderful, except that Hailey couldn't find a group to join. (Apparently, everything has to be done in approved groups with adult mentors to demonstrate the collaborative nature of science and to make sure the Fair represents the full range of scientific inquiry.) Hailey wants to demonstrate the devastating ecological effects of longline fishing, but all the groups she approached said it was out of their area.
The Animal Behavior girls told her they are going to train dwarf hamsters to play hide and seek, and the sixth grade girls in the Science of Branding group aim to find out whether a site like MySpace could ever be as popular as MySpace. I think that Hailey thought that branding had to do with tagging animals, but I told her that it was very brave of her as a fourth grader even to approach them with her idea.
Meanwhile, Bronson has been using sharpies to decorate an old t-shirt with the traditional clawed biohazard symbol and the special radiation warning. He made shirts for Amber and Hailey too. They look so cool I think we could sell shirts like this as a Science Fair fund raiser. I've already emailed the idea to the Stella Rondo Art Angels!
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