Offer to Mentor Student Science Projects
 

With my own children mostly beyond their years of competitive science projects, my wife and teens have encouraged me to extend an offer to serve as volunteer mentor for other students wishing to do science projects either for competition or for possible publication.

In addition to the astounding success of my own children, I have mentored numerous projects for incoming freshmen at the Air Force Academy as well as student projects in distant states via email and Skype and telephone...
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My 8th grade son is doing a project on why kids of preachers and kids that were home schooled finally get out of the house and go buck wild with sex and drugs in an attempt to find what they missed out on growing up. Can you help.

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Ok, it's time to come clean. All this foolishness you post everyday is a conspiracy with Salty Cajun management to produce more activity on the site. That's the only logical explanation.

On a side note. I'd like to do a science experiment to substantiate the claim that your wife and teens put you up to extending this gracious offer. I want to test my hypothesis that you actually came up with this idea on your own. I believe the basis of this idea is to demonstrate to all of us your exceptional skill of shameless self promotion.

Seachaser- I agree ain't much to report in the Western LA Coastal Fishing world, except that it basically sucks lately.... But I think my son got a great summer job off this site. Most folks attempt to avoid the "negative". With that....have a great day !!

I'll take your bet here. Just in case you are curious about his self promotion or, his kids' extension of an offer, they are actually quite charitable.

The last two SC Christmas drives that we did, he and Mrs. Mathgeek came with a very sizable check. Their children came along with a sizable amount of cash that they had themselves earned. It was never posted the amount and never will be but, I will say that it was larger than any other two contributors combined.

When we held the last SC fishing tourney, the Mathgeek family won a sizable amount in the trash fish division. Unlike any other division, they donated the money back to the charity.

So, in closing, I'd say his character and offer is genuine. If you've never met him or his children personally, you don't know what you're missing. Their intellect, whit and, kind hearts are genuine. I know that if my son were in any sort of project that were math and/or science based right now, I'd jump at his offer.

Those are all fantastic charitable things they have done. Like many other posters before me, I'm just having some fun with all these threads.
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...1231432214.jpg

With an emphasis on "I'm" .

Dead on accurate. I have had the pleasure of fishing with MG and his children on a few occasions. He is a man of good character and has raised his children to be the same way. Very good people and I wouldn't hesitate to take anything MG says as truth.

Thanks for the support, guys.

When we laid out the possibilities for how I can make use of my extra time now that we're down to two teens at home (and taking mostly college courses their last years of high school), it was a fairly open family discussion, because my decision would impact the whole family in one way or another.

Neither my wife or teens liked the idea of increasing my scientific consulting work, because we don't really need the extra money, and an increase in paid consulting means an increase in travel for me at times when it is convenient for the client and not for the family. Neither my wife or teens was keen on the idea of getting back into paid teaching, because part time teaching pays so poorly, I was unlikely to find a job teaching with appropriate academic rigor, and the scheduling demands of an academic job would most likely conflict with our academic schedule and the needs of our teenagers.

Everyone liked the idea of using the time to mentor science projects. I've been mentoring a few outside projects every year, and in most cases the whole family gets to help out with the brainstorming and review process of most projects. It is a lot of fun and really gets the creative juices flowing. Over the years, we have worked with some great people on some great projects. It can be a lot of work, but the scheduling and travel needs can usually be adjusted to accommodate the needs of my family. We've already started the process with some new students, and there is a wave of excitement when we discuss great new ideas some students have had.

I can understand why it's not something everyone wants to be a part of, but I don't understand the scoffing and mocking. Just think about it as a MathGeek version of coaching an academic team rather than a sporting team. If I were putting together a rifle team and broadcast a wide invitation for students to join, would this be mocked or scoffed at? Hey, maybe I'm onto something ...

Keep doing your thing MG. The people that know the least will talk the loudest. Just how it is unfortunately. Props to you for volunteering your experience to help a young person.

X2!!! Very nice of you MG.

I usually don't feed trolls, but why are you being a d*ck?