Editorial

Science literacy 101


Shelter Island School students in grades 7 through 9 are working diligently, as they do each fall, to prepare research projects for the 45th annual Science Fair on December 4, a highlight of the school year that celebrates critical thinking and careful analysis.


While the kids develop procedures, research sources and formulate hypotheses for their experiments, adults at Town Hall skirmished over the significance of a different experiment.


Chemical analyses of soil sampled near a 4-poster station on Cliff Clark’s property were presented Tuesday. Councilman Glenn Waddington said he had no idea how to interpret the results but read the numbers to the audience, minus the correct concentration units, and went on to read a somber letter from a concerned Mr. Clark.


Supervisor candidate Bill Smith, who collected the samples, clarified the results’ relative concentrations, but he commented that he was not an expert and neither was anyone else in the room. Maybe not. But you don’t need to be a pesticide expert to recognize solid science. To demonstrate, let’s see how Mr. Smith’s project would fare at the school science fair.


All student experiments are performed using the scientific method, which is pretty straight forward.


1. Develop a hypothesis. That did, indeed, happen. Mr. Smith was so certain that he would find permethrin in the soil at a 4-poster station that he predicted the results would create a firestorm. Students are encouraged to create an original project with uncertain results. Because of permethrin’s tendency to bind with soil, this outcome was a sure thing for Mr. Smith.


2. Design a procedure. The focus here is on avoiding error and, in the case of sampling for a contaminant, cross-contamination. Despite good intentions, this protocol fell short. Without professional sampling equipment, surface sediments couldn’t be completely separated from the deeper sample. The samples were not properly preserved, according to the lab report, which warned that inexpert sampling yielded an analysis with limited “verifiability.”


3. Test your hypothesis by collecting and analyzing data, preferably lots of data. Students repeat their experiments at least three times. This experiment, run just once, included only two data points. The control sample, a specimen intended to be free from the chemical being tested, was contaminated, which can translate into a failed experiment.


No one wants to find pesticides in the environment but they’ve been with us long before the 4-posters. Like a science fair project, this experiment will be judged next week when the DEC and other experts come to Town Hall. But one question can be answered before the experts chime in. Was this 4-poster soil sampling experiment politically motivated? Absolutely.