At the end of February, I returned to my hometown to judge my former high school’s science fair. You may remember the science fairs of your youth as a series of baking soda volcanoes and talked-to plants. But as with most other aspects of high-school-life, the looming threat of college applications has largely done away with those carefree cultural signifiers of childhood scientific studies. No, these kids, who go to a private college prep school and were competing for a chance to go to the state science and engineering fair, were often using science techniques I didn’t encounter until midway through college. Here are a few of highlights:

• Studying a protein human saliva to track our internal clock.
• Making wire meshes to  help improve flexible, wearable technology.
• Creating a new model to predict the path of hurricanes in almost real time.
• Using plants to remove and recover heavy metals from contaminated water ways.

Despite the above-average complexity of these projects, everyone was still in high school, and so much of my job as a judge was to help them practice and improve their science communication skills. As a judge, the task is relatively straightforward: go to your assigned category, stop by a poster, read it, and then ask questions of the student scientists. Repeat for each poster. Then, go to a different location and discuss with other judges the scientific creativity, research execution, and overall presentation quality. Pick one or two winners from your category to go on to the state or to be considered for the international fair, and you’re done.

I loved my experience as a science fair judge. I got to dust off some old skills (it’s been a while since I’ve thought about cell cultures or the DNA-replicating polymerase chain reaction), talk about some fiendishly clever science, and remind myself how exciting science can be when you’re just starting out.  And if you took more than the introductory course in any science in college, you too can be a science fair judge. If you’re interested, click here or here for links of how to get involved around the US.

Also, in full disclosure, my favorite part might actually have been seeing friends and former teachers, who had also come back to lend their scientific expertise to the fair.

The blogger and two very old and very good friends. (One of whom also blogs about science.)