Sad Puppy Dog Eyes
posted in Frenzied Daddy, fathers |So, for reasons I won’t go into, I had to come clean with my daughter this morning.
“Honey, the only reason I had kids was for science fair projects. I go to Michaels’ (arts and craft supply store) and just pick up and hold the solar system model packages, and then put them back on the shelf. And I do it again with the dioramas. I just want to make science fun; and I can’t.”
Hopefully I put enough pathos into my delivery (These are real tears!!) that it sank in. I’m the guy who took three AP science courses his senior year in High School. I’ve had some fan-fricking-tastic science teachers and I loved the stuff; chemistry, biology, physics, even the geology we did for the “Natural History of Oregon” class. Ms Dexter, Mr Carlsen, Mr Sauer, I’m lookin at you. On the other hand, Mr Keupker (AP Calculus) can go jump in the Willamette.
I told her we could split up water in to H2 and O2. She thought that meant just boiling it (no). And I described how we could do it and then demonstrate that these were those specific gasses. We talked about some other science projects she could do in the two weeks she has remaining before this project is due. We talked about how to find out what her teacher is expecting, and that I wanted his rubrick to come home with her tonight.
Do you know any good science fair projects? Have any good science stories?
My favorite might be telling Peter Gunn to “hay feel this little white pellet… feel that slipperyness? (it was Sodium Hydroxide) … That’s your skin dissolving. You might want to wash that off…” … No, wait, that’s not my favorite. 
