Silly Little Country

Before and After Visiting the Fermilab

A seventh-grade class visits Fermilab and this page summarizes their conceptions of scientists before and after the visit, with sketches, and short descriptions.
My favorite change is Marisa's. In her 'before' drawing the scientist is a somewhat geeky-looking guy; in the 'after' it is a fairly normal looking woman with green hair.
Her descriptions:
Before:

A scientist is hard working, studious, detail-oriented, observant, intelligent, exacting, and patient.

Exacting? Grade 7?
After:

Most people think of a scientist as a person who is nerdy, studious, scholarly, and a person who is devoted to her job and doesn¹t have much of a personality or isn¹t very interesting. This is a stereotype and today just proves that scientists have lives, interests, hobbies, families and friends. I find that scientists are very, very interesting

I suspect the "most people think" is introducing what was a projection on her part.
I do not understand the apparent quotation from Marisa on the home page for theproject.
BTW she is not typical. It pleased me to see how many of the girls pictured women as their 'before' scientist.

What a great little project!

h/t BoingBoing

posted by Alan Adamson @ 2:29 PM