8-Year-Olds Publish Scientific Bee Study

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/kids-study-bees/

by cwan • 16 years ago

39 14 16 years ago

anigbrowl• 16 years ago

This item has not been released to the Public. If you feel you have reached this item in error please contact us for assistance. Maintenance Users, please sign in below.

Still embargoed until Thursday, for no apparent reason. Smooth move, Royal Society. Cached: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:KUXd6aT2o38J:w...

hugh32• 16 years ago

the students wrote in the paper’s abstract. “We also discovered that science is cool and fun because you get to do stuff that no one has ever done before.”

I am so tempted to add that to the abstract of my latest paper.

(Tragically I'm up to the 600-character limit anyway. Maybe I can delete the bit about the applications to extrasolar planets.)

StavrosK3• 16 years ago

Tangentially, this reminds me of some contest where you had to write "I smoke crack rocks" in a scientific paper that got published. Some redditor brilliantly worked that phrase into a legitimate sentence, I loved it.

shrikant• 16 years ago

Challenge + Winner: http://phdchallenge.org/awards

sliverstorm• 16 years ago

“We discovered that bumblebees can use a combination of colour and spatial relationships in deciding which colour of flower to forage from,” the students wrote in the paper’s abstract.

I think it's safe to say they had some help.

StavrosK3• 16 years ago

With the writeup, at least...

roel_v• 16 years ago

I'd be hard pressed to believe that a group of 8 year olds would congregate at the playground and say 'hey, this homework assignment we had last week, what journal could we submit this to?'.

something• 16 years ago

...and kudos to those that helped them. it was a great idea. i hope we see more of it.

sorbus• 16 years ago

I may be missing something, but from the article it seems like they've just demonstrated that Pavlovian conditioning works on bees. On the other hand, the real story is kids getting excited about science; I would like to know how many of them are going to end up going into science when they get older as a result of this experience.

kissickas2• 16 years ago

“I thought science was just like math, really boring,” he said. “But now I see that it’s actually quite fun."

Well, I guess it's something...

Dementati• 16 years ago

Although math is still really boring!

hugh32• 16 years ago

At the third-grade level? Yeah, it's boring.

Doesn't get interesting until third year of university.

8-Year-Olds Publish Scientific Bee Study

Related Stories