Work isn't going to start soon, it already started. 2 hours of standing around, observing a bunch of 16 year olds conduct experiments, occasionally telling them something earned me $50. WOOHOO. Is this job easy or what? Well they're preparing for a competition now, so this is my main responsibility for the next 2-3 weeks.

The kids are nice enough, 16 year olds rushing to conduct experiments and present them to a panel of judges. But being young as they are, and having very little experience in planning experiments, they lack direction.

One team looked at me as if I was speaking Greek when I suggested that they start planning what they wanted to include in the presentation's introduction since they actually had time to kill. The same team then looked at me as if I then switched to Latin when I suggested they start planning the subsequent steps of the experiments, telling them how they need to plan for at least the next couple of steps, so they won't have to waste time thinking what to do when they got to that point. Like a when you perform step X, you expect to obtain outcome Y and what do you do when you get to Y? IF instead of getting Y, you get Z instead, what do you do?

The 2nd team doesn't know what a controlled experiment is, I realised that when I got to their bench, they were carrying out experiments without recording what they were doing, not recording down what materials they used, what concentrations they used, what volumes added etc. They were adding any volume of any liquid they liked. It's not a complicated project, they're just inexperienced.

I found myself chanting to myself that they're only 16. It makes me wonder if I knew what controlled experiments were when I was 16 and makes me wonder if I knew how to effectively use my time back then. I find myself lowering my expectations for them but I don't know if I'm doing it because it's an age thing, an intelligence thing or something else completely. It's discriminatory, I know, and I'm rather ashamed to admit it. I think it's probably an experience thing, them not knowing what to do. I've had time in junior college to learn how to complete projects, and how to plan simple experiments, my time so far in university has required me to occasionally draw on that same set of skills. Theirs... let's just say they're just starting to hone it. Hopefully it'll get better soon, considering they don't have much time left.