Elementary School Pre-selected Winner's Before Projects Submitted We teach our children to work hard and be creative.  We watch them experiment and measure results.  We encourage them to get excited about discovery and we try to help them develop into good citizens.  We try to teach them the "rules" of society, or at least how the "rules" should be.  So what do you say to your child when his teacher tells him that the science fair winners have been determined before students have turned in their projects?  Seemingly  based on their written hypothesis and not on the end result project?  Thus, not giving all students the opportunity to participate in the fair?  My autistic 9 year old son (in the fourth grade) came home excited about the upcoming science fair.  We eagerly read the information together, as science is his favorite subject.  After reading the materials and marking the deadlines, he set out to find a useful science fair project.  My son's interests include studying the universe, survival and understanding world events, etc.  It made sense that his hypothesis would be to determine if a water filtration system could be made from household items in the event of a catastrophic event that renders our municipal water utilities unavailable. Both of my children start every morning watching HLN with Robin Meade. They enjoy knowing information and then enlightening me of the happenings of the world.  They are very aware of catastrophic events such as Hurricane Katrina, the tornado's that devastated the mid-west, etc.  After being concerned of how events can leave mankind struggling for survival, he decided to prove his hypothesis correct.  After working for weeks on the project to find the best items that would prove useful to filter water for survival, his project was nearly complete.  With the science project due on Monday (10-08-2012), he was putting on his final touches to his work board and sharing his excitement with his teacher who stated to him she was sorry but the winners had already been selected.  This selection was apparently made based on the written ideas only.   My son asked me, "mom, how can winners be selected before the contest has begun?"  I was certain he had misunderstood the teacher and assured him that would be unfair and unethical.  Unfortunately, this was not the case.  He wasn't interested in winning but he was concerned that he would not get the opportunity to share the information of his findings with other kids to perhaps save their lives if ever faced with the need for clean water in an emergency.  I share with you the link to the newspaper about the science fair (the pre-selected projects), and I also add photos of his project and findings, should it be newsworthy.  He asked me to submit the story in case Robin would like the information.   http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/south-haven/saylor-elementary-students-present-science-projects/article_bf4867e3-06dc-5bf1-a8b3-2673312d4147.html Many regards, Jamie I. Ellis & Nathan