My long commute home gives me the "down time" I need to reflect on each busy day. I always make sure I spend some of that time thinking about the positives I saw during the day. Imagine my drive last Thursday night, coming home from our annual Science Fair.

There were so many great take-aways for me from that evening. Sure, the student work impressed me.  And I'm continually amazed at the huge turn-out we have each Science Fair evening. But I want to highlight a couple of "aha's" for me from the Science Fair.

The first one came from overhearing a student-to-student conversation. Two students were sharing with each other their experiments, what went well, and what did not. This was not an adult-directed conversation, but rather a completely organic, COLLABORATIVE conversation about their work.  One student lamented that her hypothesis was wrong; that her findings did not match what she Mthought was going to happen in the experiment. The other student said, "That's what I like about the science fair. It's Ok to be wrong about what you thought. In fact, I think that's the point."

I wanted to interject right then and bellow a hearty, "YESSSS." What a great moment. For a student to express that we don't always come up with the right, or expected, answer AND that it is perfectly OK not to do so. Her positive viewpoint on this is part of the growth mindset we want to instill in our students. It is vital to teach our children that when the desired or expected outcome doesn't materialize, there is still valuable learning in the process.   

The second take-away came in the afternoon. As I was helping to put participation certificates on the science boards, I was able to be a witness to the pack of judges who were beginning their deliberation on which experiments should receive awards. With the students back in their classrooms, each team of judges were free to walk around to the exhibits, re-examine them and then make their arguments to the team members about where they thought the experiment should place.  It was gratifying to hear many of the judges cite their earlier conversations with the students. One judge noted that a student so thoroughly went through his reasoning when coming to his findings that the judge got lost in the content. "This kid really knew his stuff."

I can't thank our judges enough. We had over 40 of them (yes, 40!!!) who not only donated their time, but also strongly contributed to the scientific process for our students by asking critical thinking questions and thoroughly examining each 4^th - 6^th grade experiment. It was yet another awesome example of community support at Springer.