Regarding the actual history of a controversy regarding science fair projects in Alaska, the condom project WAS allowed to compete at the regional level after it had won at the local level. The condom project did win an award at the regional level, although not as high an award as it probably should have taken (given that the results obtained by the student effort were subsequently confirmed by a professional Consumer Reports magazine study). The brief article below describes the underlieing dynamics of the whole condom-testing as science fair project issue. There was a fairly heated exchange of several Letters to the Editor in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner regarding it all; if people are interested in reading that exchange then please let me know and I will post a transcript.

My apologies in advance if quotation marks or some other punctuation in the following text do not translate correctly - that happens with posts to some lists from this server.

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The following article appeared on pages 26 and 27 of "Science in Our Community," the Summer, 1996, edition of The Great Northern Science Handbook, a publication of the Alaska Science Consortium. It may be reproduced.

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Preserving the "Science" in Community Science Fairs

By
Steven Jacquier

As community interest and participation in the science fair venue grows in Alaska, so too does the likelihood of some projects exciting controversy. Projects may be submitted which various community members feel quite strongly should either be included or excluded from the fair by reason of their topical focus, regardless of the validity of their science content and their methodology. Science projects can become points of contention by innocent happenstance, through a politicized agenda being intentionally championed in a project, and even due to just the perception of a politicized agenda being advanced in a project.

Science fair organizers and judges may find that community science events flow more smoothly if the criteria which qualify or disqualify projects for inclusion are thought through carefully and set forth well beforehand. Providing clearly stated criteria will assist community members in assessing what is appropriately within the realm of a scientific fair prior to the start of individual project preparation. Likewise, it is essential that teachers, students, parents, and interested community members at large are provided with understandable guidelines, such as those from NSTA, regarding the use of potentially hazardous substances, animals, and human subjects. Projects must be kept safe for both experimenters and the public, and humane for any animals involved.

This year there arose in Alaska controversy regarding two different projects. The controversy made newspapers across the country, made its way into the InterNet, and was discussed between scientists in places as far away as Antarctica. A brief review of that experience may suggest some lessons to science fair organizers.

The first project to excite controversy was a submission entitled "Abortion Equals Murder." This project was declined admission to a science fair, and that decision upset people who felt censorship was afoot. The project was excluded because it focused on ethical and moral judgments concerning abortion, rather than upon the science of fetal growth and/or the technology of medical science. As an exposition regarding personal ethics and morality it was found to be inappropriate for the science fair venue. Some community members objected that with this decision the organizers had prohibited projects examining fetal development in general, but in fact two other projects at the same event did examine fetal development in a scientific manner, one of them by comparing the fetal development rates of humans and moose.

Conversely, a second project excited protest when it was admitted to the science fair.. That project tested the failure point of various condom brands under measured stresses. "Why," some community members asked, "is a project on abortion being excluded from the science fair while a project examining condom strength is being included?" Liberal politics and deficient morality were suspected as the underlying motivation of organizers and judges.

Actually (quite regardless of the morality and political feelings of organizers and judges one way or the other), the condom testing project was admitted to the fair because it was a straightforward application of scientific principles to a technical question. The focus was scientific in nature and (as was subsequently confirmed by a Consumer Reports investigation of condom brands) the science of the experiment's methodology was valid; to have excluded the condom-testing project would indeed have constituted censorship.

In small and relatively homogeneous communities it is likely that local standards for what is and is not socially acceptable will probably self-impose limits on the sorts of projects which appear. In larger, more diverse communities the parents of some students may well hold different outlooks and standards regarding what is acceptable as a project focus for their students.

In community science fairs, as in the larger world, the results of scientific inquiry can be seen to hold social and ethical implications. Social and ethical debate, however, is not what the venue of the science fair has been created to accommodate. The task of science fair organizers is to insure that the science fair remains focused on science, and to insure that all genuinely scientific explorations are included in the event. The politics of whether the sun orbits the earth or the earth orbits the sun do not change the empirical scientific facts of the phenomenon, although they did almost cost Galilleo Galilei his life. History is filled with similar examples of unpopular scientific findings eventually proving to be highly significant. It logically follows that whether students and parents elect to investigate fetal growth and development, condom strength, or any other topic an equitable science fair venue remains open to their efforts so long as the project focuses on a scientific question and so long as the science of the methodology is valid, safe, and humane.

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May be re-posted to other lists if you care to do so.