“This isn’t science!” Apparently that was a common refrain at the science bowl my son participated in last week. The event is normally held at the Carnegie Science Center, a typical modern hands-on institution heavy on technology like robotics and interactive computer exhibits and also physics demonstrations and experiments. This year the science bowl was at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the kind of scientific institution built a century ago to study and display fossils, field specimens of living organisms, geological samples, and cultural artifacts. In broad strokes, it represents the observational side of science rather than the experimental or constructive side. And apparently, that side is somewhat foreign to the middle schoolers of Pittsburgh’s North Hills.
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