> Science exploration driven by genuine curiosity is more open-ended than experiments that come in a box and test students on whether they get the right answer. I remember in my high school physics class we were first taught the value of Earth’s gravitational constant g, and then asked to perform an experiment that should reveal it.
> Of course, working with cruder tools, limited patience, and air resistance, many of us didn’t wind up squarely on 9.8 m/s^2. One of my partners was quick to scribble out our actual observation, and she and I had a brief struggle over control of the pencil as she attempted to put in the “correct” answer. She had a better sense of the teacher’s intentions than I did. The tables that honestly reported a “wrong” result were encouraged to repeat their experiment until they got a trial that “worked.” We missed the chance to talk about how scientists reconcile noisy data. We missed the chance to run an experiment for the purpose of exploring the unknown.
> Students in science fairs and adults in professional labs know the answer they’re supposed to get.
Huh. I always hated being compelled to participate in school science fairs and school science labs, but it wouldn't have occurred to me that this was a problem. It's obvious that you're going to have measurement errors. That's an expected part of every lab. As it was presented in every single science class, the point is to respond to your own measurement errors by including a discussion of why your numbers might be different than expected. ("My ruler was not graded below a resolution of one centimeter.")
I cannot stand the science lab approach of "Here's a description of an experiment that you cannot reproduce. Try anyway, and then write up a lab report pretending that you accomplished something."
But I would kind of like a lab along the lines of "Here are some primitive tools. See how close you can get to measuring [quantity X]."
> Of course, working with cruder tools, limited patience, and air resistance, many of us didn’t wind up squarely on 9.8 m/s^2. One of my partners was quick to scribble out our actual observation, and she and I had a brief struggle over control of the pencil as she attempted to put in the “correct” answer. She had a better sense of the teacher’s intentions than I did. The tables that honestly reported a “wrong” result were encouraged to repeat their experiment until they got a trial that “worked.” We missed the chance to talk about how scientists reconcile noisy data. We missed the chance to run an experiment for the purpose of exploring the unknown.
> Students in science fairs and adults in professional labs know the answer they’re supposed to get.
Huh. I always hated being compelled to participate in school science fairs and school science labs, but it wouldn't have occurred to me that this was a problem. It's obvious that you're going to have measurement errors. That's an expected part of every lab. As it was presented in every single science class, the point is to respond to your own measurement errors by including a discussion of why your numbers might be different than expected. ("My ruler was not graded below a resolution of one centimeter.")
I cannot stand the science lab approach of "Here's a description of an experiment that you cannot reproduce. Try anyway, and then write up a lab report pretending that you accomplished something."
But I would kind of like a lab along the lines of "Here are some primitive tools. See how close you can get to measuring [quantity X]."