Science vs. Philosophy Student’s experiment crashes against the official view

Should students be punished when their science projects do not conform with the philosophy of school officials? No indeed. But Shari Lo, 15, a Southern California student, can tell you that sometimes it just doesn’t work that way. The Coachella Valley Unified School District yanked her awarding-winning condom reliability experiment from an upcoming competition because school officials deemed the project incompatible with the district’s sex education program. Supt. Colleen Gaynes explained: “Because it [the project] is on condom reliability, it basically encourages safe sex. Our philosophy is abstinence, not safe sex.” That statement rates an A in political correctness, a D in reality.

Lo chose her project, she says, out of concern about high teenage pregnancy rates and other aspects of sexual activity. The Coachella Valley High School student is appealing the district’s wrongheaded decision.

In Northern California, Ari Hoffman faced a similar problem. The 15-year-old sophomore from Mill Valley won first prize at a recent Marin County science fair for his project on the effects of radiation on the reproductive cycle of fruit flies. But officials at the next level, the Bay Area Science Fair, disqualified Hoffman, saying his entry violated the fair’s rules against cruelty to animals. In the course of his experiment, Hoffman lost 35 of 200 flies, some possibly to radiation exposure, most to bacterial infection. The flies have a 21-day life span.

Hoffman has since received an apology from Bay Area Science Fair officials, and he has been invited to the California State Science Fair in Los Angeles in May. In the Lo case, the Coachella Valley Unified School District could take a lesson from the north.