Teacher’s Questions for Science Champs

SCIENCE

Before reading:

1. Imagine your state’s science fair is coming up soon. How would you come up with a winning idea for a science project?

During reading:

1. Why did focusing the radio signals broadcast by his wireless router help David Li connect to the Internet?

2. Describe how a parabola works to focus radio, light or sound waves.

3. What do you think the pictures Paige Gentry captured of skunks visiting the bowls of bait revealed about their preferences?

4. How could a skunk’s taste for chicken help reduce rabies in these wild animals?

5. Raymond Gilmartin built a wind tunnel as part of his project. Explain how that would have helped him test different kinds of spoilers.

6. How would removing antibiotics from the environment help make sure those drugs continued to work?

After reading:

1. List three problems that finalists tackled with their projects and the solutions they came up to solve those problems.

2. Describe how spending a lot of time playing video games, tapping out messages on a phone or surfing the Internet would fail to give your peripheral vision a workout.

3. Do you think Jessika Baral’s device would be more or less useful today than, say, 10 years ago? Explain why or why not.

4. Bill Wallace says the Broadcom MASTERS judges like to see students think beyond their initial conclusions and explore the additional questions they might raise. Explain how Maria Elena Grimmett did that with her science projects.

SOCIAL STUDIES

1. If you’re interested in something, you will be curious to learn more. That’s good advice, especially if you’re interested in solving a problem or finding a solution. Brainstorm several problems that you frequently encounter in everyday life that you would be interested in solving.