Do It Heartily - The First Science Fair Project

Colossians 3:23 says, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men...."

Well, we have finally arrived at the age of the science fair project with our older son. And I am wondering how we instill a love for excellence in our children. Healthy pride without arrogance. Commitment without obsession. How do we help them get the balance right? And how do we best model that balance as well?

Thank God his teacher provided incremental deadlines throughout the project to help us avoid procrastination. Yet, today with the project due tomorrow, still most of our weekend has been devoted to the project.

Amidst my own memories of vinyl lettering and construction paper assemblies in wee hours of the morning and given the fact that he needs to grow and learn on his own, I have still grappled with these main questions in the experience:

• How much should I help?
• To what degree should I offer correction and suggestions?
• How much should I let him use the computer in the process?

I opted to be a sounding board for his ideas and offer supervised Internet access to help get the ideas flowing for a project that he would love and enjoy. Then, throughout the process, I served as a checkpoint and editor for each phase that he incrementally turned in. His dad served as the earthquake simulator and helped with the construction and actual implementation of the experiment itself. Then, I served as a computer assistant to type up his hand-written materials. The most difficult part for my husband and I as designers was letting go of the layout of the board and to allow him to mount things as he saw fit to the actual display board.

Throughout, I really had to keep watch of myself to only play a helpful role and not a take-it-over role (though it clearly would have been more efficient to do so, I was able to resist the temptation!). In the end, we survived it and the only thing I am left wondering is why certain aspects where my husband and I offered clear suggestions of best methods were completely ignored in lieu of efficiency. I think it came to a point where my 8 year old just wanted to get it done and unfortunately was willing to compromise quality in order to do so.

He did end up working hard and he did finish it which is good. I am only left to ponder how I can offer my suggestions in a way that they will be compelling enough to utilize and raise the bar of quality...yet not overpower his own creativity and choices.

RELATED LINKS:
http://www.ipl.org/youth/projectguide/gettingstarted.html
http://www.juliantrubin.com/branchesofsciencefair.html
http://www.christian-parenting-source.com/sciencefairprojectsideas.html
http://www.super-science-fair-projects.com/
http://www.thinkquest.org/library/cat_show.html?cat_id=13
http://science.howstuffworks.com/