Three Girls Win Intel Science Fair

http://wayofthewoo.blogspot.com/2008/05/three-girls-win-intel-science-fair.html

by aswanson • 18 years ago

10 6 18 years ago

wayofthewoo.blogspot.com

timr2• 18 years ago

This is nice to see, but the Intel fair is hardly a meaningful measurement of demographic trends.

Winning the Intel competition depends heavily on a high-school student's (rather privileged) access to university-level research. It's no secret that universities are invested in youth outreach for women and minorities in science. In other words, there's a huge, not-so-hidden selection bias going on here.

A far more interesting question: what happens to these women after 8+ years of post-secondary education? (Hint: they don't tend to stick around to gather more awards)

ardit33• 18 years ago

from what I know, it is always kids with parents that are into the industry that win it. So, privileged, also means having a parent working on advanced research or R&D with heavy access of materials and knowledge that normal parents don't.

Shooter• 18 years ago

While it's very true that privileged parents/school connections help some students tremendously, good science is still good science. Anyone with a good research idea that can execute well will be able to go pretty far in the competitions. You don't have to have PhD parents or go to a private school to win.

I won several awards at ISEF many years ago, including a few full-ride college scholarships. That was before Intel took it over completely. I also won awards at Westinghouse and some of the DoD science competitions. My Dad was a truck driver and my Mom was a waitress at the time. They are 'normal' - for the most part ;-) I also went to a small, rural high school that was definitely NOT known for its science programs. Despite this contrary anecdotal evidence, I'll have to mostly agree with you about the background of the people that win at these competitions...although I can't speak directly to the gender issue. (I do remember quite a few female competitors...?)

I was definitely the odd guy out at most of the competitions because I didn't go to a private school and/or come from a very wealthy and educated family. I was also a little lower on the...uh...Asperger's scale that most of my competitors, to put it diplomatically. While I was a geek at my high school, I seemed like an extroverted uber-jock at most of the competitions because it turns out that everything IS relative. It was a very weird (but nice) change in roles.

They have some great awards at these competitions. I won a trip to MITI City in Japan, for example. It's also fun...the practical jokes that come about with that many geeks hanging out are amazing! ;-)

nazgulnarsil• 18 years ago

lol, asian and two indians like I expected. white girls are stupid and lazy :p (bring on the downmods)

maximilian• 18 years ago

Did you read the shit they did! They did some pretty crazy shit for being high schoolers.. I hardly knew my way around an integral in high school let alone doing what these kids did.

Three Girls Win Intel Science Fair

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