Tuesday, December 8, 2015

The science project

Biscuit's class is learning about science projects. I don't recall doing science projects in first grade, but if you wanted to know what he's doing in first grade that I didn't do until second or third grade, it would take a lot of typing!

So Biscuit was excited about the project, and he wanted to tell me all about it.

"Mom, do you want me to tell you how to perform a science experiment?" Biscuit asked.

"Yes," I said. "Tell me all about it."

"Well," he said, "here are the steps. ... First, you ask a question. Then, you form a hypothesis. Next, you perform a test. Then you collect your results. And the last step is that you reach a conclusion."

"Dude!" I said. "I don't think I knew the word 'hypothesis' until, like, third grade! What was your experiment?"

"Well, we wanted to know if the color of a drink would affect the taste of it. That was our question," he explained. "So we each had three cups with something to drink in them. One was blue. One was green. And one was plain. We tasted the drink from each cup, and you know what?"

"What?" I asked. I could tell he was enjoying drawing out his explanation.

"All three cups were apple juice," he said. "The color didn't change the taste at all!"

"That's a really cool project," I said.

"So our question was whether different colored drinks taste different. Our hypothesis was that we thought they would taste the same. Our test was that we drank them. Then we wrote down what each one tasted like. That was our results. And our conclusion was that the color of the apple juice didn't make them taste any differently."

I was very impressed.

I dialed my brother's cellphone and handed the phone to Biscuit. 

"Tell your uncle about your science project," I said.

Biscuit took care of the pleasantries then told my brother about his project. And my brother, being my brother, said, "Well tell me this ... Is a hypothemus kin to a hippopotamus?"

"Noooo," Biscuit said. "It's a hy-po-the-sis."

"That's what I said," my brother said. "Hypothemus. It at least has to be a cousin of the hippopotamus, right?"

Biscuit let out a big sigh (something he does to my brother quite often) and said, "You're just picking on me, right?"

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