I&#x27;m not so convinced by the value of these big science fairs.<p>It seems that they&#x27;re inevitably won by some kid whose parents just <i>happen</i> to be scientists, or who otherwise have a scientist in the family. And what they get that&#x27;s valuable isn&#x27;t just the access to the lab, it&#x27;s the suggestion of a good project that&#x27;s simple enough to do but which genuinely advances the field of science.<p>For everyone else, the science fair looks nothing like real science. They wind up spending a month playing music to a statistically insignificant number of plants, getting an inconclusive result which they will nonetheless try to sell as conclusive, and walk away thinking &quot;Well, that was stupid&quot;.<p>I&#x27;m all for involving children in the process of doing <i>real</i> science (as opposed to the &quot;experiments&quot; they usually do, which are just demonstrations). But formulating and testing a proper scientific hypothesis that will genuinely advance the field is way beyond the capability of almost every child, and indeed most beginning PhD students, because they don&#x27;t know where the limits of human knowledge are just yet.