An informal survey of seven families with school age children revealed the following results. All 7 families allowed their children to eat “bars” (a category we defined to include “milk and cereal bars”, “granola bars”, and “health/diet/protein bars”). Only 2 of the families gave their children health/diet/protein bars. The reasons both families gave was that…. read more
A Most unScientific Study: Your Child’s First Car
An informal survey of twelve families with school age children revealed the following results. 9 of the 12 families said they planned to assist their children with the acquisition of their first car. Of those 9, 4 expected to pass on or sell to their child a vehicle the familiy currently owned. 3 planned to…. read more
A Most unScientific Study – Fireworks
An informal survey of nine families revealed the following data about how families spend the Fourth of July holiday. 8 of the 9 families plan to view fireworks between July 2 and July 4. 3 of the 9 famlies plan to view fireworks between July 5 and July 10 (2 of the families will be…. read more
A Most unScientific Study: Summer School
An informal survey of seven parents of school age children revealed the following results. 5 of the 7 parents said their children were assinged summer work by their local school district. 4 of those 5 said they felt the schoosl’ assignments were poorly designed. 3 of the 5 called the schools’ assignments “not worthwhile”. Only…. read more
1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1-1+1+1+1+1+1+1×0 =?
One of the Facebook Questions currently going viral is this one. 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1-1+1+1+1+1+1+1×0 =? As of noon PST on Tuesday June 14, the correct answer was NOt the most popular answer. 781,143 people believe the expression is equal to 0. [These people are forgetting their order of operations. The 0 is multiplied by the final 1…. read more
A Most unScientific Study: Math Homework Woes
An informal survey of nine parents of Algebra, Geometry, or Algebra 2 parents revealed data which we found very distressing. 8 of the 9 parents said they feel they cannot help their child with their homework 0 of the 9 parents said they looked through their child’s math notebooks at least once a week This…. read more
A Most unScientific Study: Childproof Caps
An informal survey of 6 children children ages 4 through 13 seemed to support the old comedy bit about childproof medicine bottle caps being anything but childproof. 4 of the 6 children, including the youngest, had no problem opening a childproof pill bottle. All 6 of the children were familiar with the push-before-turning mechanism, but…. read more
A Most unScientific Study: Fruit Ignorance
An informal survey of 13 children ages 4 through 15 revealed a surprising lack of familiarity with fruit. Only 2 of the 13 children could name more than three types of apples Only 4 of the 13 children had ever heard a discussion of whether a tomato was a fruit or a vegetable None of…. read more
A Most unScientific Study: Educational Video Games
An informal survey of 8 high school freshmen revealed that seven of the 8 recalled playing “educational video games” when they were younger. Of those three categorized the games as “cool” while the other four labeled the games “lame.” More important than their opinions of the games, however, are the clarity of their recollection of…. read more
A Most unScientific Study: People Pleasing
A pair of informal surveys given seven days apart to the same class of 25 tenth-grader students yielded contradictory results despite having common questions. The only significant difference between the two surveys was that one required students to write their name on the top while was completed anonymously. The surveys each consisted of 30 seemingly…. read more
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