Kids can do real citizen science

Four years ago, when I was in 4th grade, I became very interested in science. I did some experiments with balloons, which triggered my interest in why balloons make a loud noise when they pop. Online there are two main,... [ view full abstract ]

Four years ago, when I was in 4th grade, I became very interested in science. I did some experiments with balloons, which triggered my interest in why balloons make a loud noise when they pop. Online there are two main, conflicting explanations for why popped balloons make a loud noise. I popped hundreds of balloons and took loudness data, waveform data, and frequency data.

I took all my data to Dr. Jayanta Panda, an acoustician at NASA Ames Research Center, and he said my data showed that neither of the two common explanations was true. He made a new hypothesis using my data, although this hypothesis needs to be verified.

This new explanation is the result of my work and my data, which proves kids can do real science in their own backyards. Seeing these explanations online that sounded pretty good but my work proved were wrong, showed me that just because someone has a good explanation, and it is supported by a small amount of data, doesn't mean it's right. It also showed me that we don't always understand "simple" phenomena as well as we think we do.

I displayed my work in a science fair and I saw many other people who had projects that were new science. Kids can be citizen scientists. Adult citizen scientists can mentor kids and help them to publish their work.