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Before I ever did a science experiment, I had to write a lab report and detail (1) what I was going to do, (2) how I was going to do it, and (3) what I expected

Before I ever did a science experiment, I had to write a lab report and detail (1) what I was going to do, (2) how I was going to do it, and (3) what I expected the results to be. If you aren't following the scientific method[1] and are just skipping straight to the "lets see what happens" step, are you really doing science? or are you just blowing things up? What happens when a student does one of these "science experiments" and actually blows up a classroom (or bathroom or playground) and kills a bunch of kids? Does it matter if he did it on purpose? Was he just doing science? Kids being kids? Was the teacher to blame? Were the parents to blame? If it was your kid that was maimed/killed in the explosion, would you even care if it was a "science experiment"? On the flip side, is it worth worrying about the rare case of a rogue-science-experiment-gone-wrong? Is it worth worrying about the signal sent to aspiring "school massacre-ists" by saying "You can get away with blowing stuff up at school as long as you say it's for science." Maybe not. I hope my kids are responsible with science. I hope the people around my kids are responsible with science. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

falcolas 13y ago
To paraphrase Adam Savage, who was quoting someone else... "The difference between fooling around and science is whether you write down the results after you're done." Of course, to say that you're not learning if you're not writing it down is wrong too.
sliverstorm 13y ago
Lab reports and notebooks are not what makes "Science". Science is developing a hypothesis, performing an experiment, observing the results, and re-evaluating your hypothesis. That's it. It doesn't matter if you write it down or turn it in. Kids do science all the time.
darkarmani 13y ago
> If you aren't following the scientific method[1] and are just skipping straight to the "lets see what happens" step, are you really doing science? or are you just blowing things up? So nothing before the 17th century was science? > is it worth worrying about the signal sent to aspiring "school massacre-ists" by saying "You can get away with blowing stuff up at school as long as you say it's for science." No it is not worth worrying about that signal, just like it isn't worth abolishing free speech to get anything remotely looking like bomb making instructions off the internet. Cut your nose to spite your face.

falcolas 13y ago

To paraphrase Adam Savage, who was quoting someone else... "The difference between fooling around and science is whether you write down the results after you're done." Of course, to say that you're not learning if you're not writing it down is wrong too.

sliverstorm 13y ago

Lab reports and notebooks are not what makes "Science". Science is developing a hypothesis, performing an experiment, observing the results, and re-evaluating your hypothesis. That's it. It doesn't matter if you write it down or turn it in. Kids do science all the time.

darkarmani 13y ago

> If you aren't following the scientific method[1] and are just skipping straight to the "lets see what happens" step, are you really doing science? or are you just blowing things up? So nothing before the 17th century was science? > is it worth worrying about the signal sent to aspiring "school massacre-ists" by saying "You can get away with blowing stuff up at school as long as you say it's for science." No it is not worth worrying about that signal, just like it isn't worth abolishing free speech to get anything remotely looking like bomb making instructions off the internet. Cut your nose to spite your face.