Whose Science Project Is It, Anyway?

The gang of grown men and women clogging the aisle at our local hardware store, peering into locked glass cases of spray-paint cans, could only mean one thing. . . .

No, there’s no giant neighborhood mural in the works. It’s simply science fair time--again.

Only the stress of a science project-in-progress could send a grown man--an obstetrician between deliveries, no less--ducking in and out of paint stores in the rain, searching for the final can of Blueberry paint that Junior needs to put the finishing touches on his solar-powered car.

Or force two women--their shopping carts already loaded with wooden dowels, glue guns, paint brushes, pipe cleaners, sponges, metal screws--into a showdown over the last remaining can of Cinnamon Sheen.

Me, I’m looking for whatever colors it’ll take to turn a giant white Styrofoam ball into a passable imitation of the planet Venus.

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It’s a worthy educational exercise, I’m sure, intended to turn kids on to the joy of scientific inquiry; to stoke their curiosities and imaginations, develop patience and precision, foster an enduring appreciation of the virtues of discipline and hard work.

And “parents are often encouraged to work with their children on projects,” our reference book on science projects says, “thus fostering richer family relationships as well as enhancing the child’s self-esteem.”

Well, I’ve worked with my children on five projects now--with two dozen more to come over their school careers--and we have yet to emerge from the hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing ordeal with closer family relationships or anything approximating higher self-esteem.

Obviously we’re doing something wrong--and we’re in good company, as the hordes of harried parents and children descending on hardware stores, libraries and art supply shops in the past month can attest.

I’m sure there are kids out there who tackle their science projects early and plug away diligently--and alone--night after night, emerging from their rooms with perfect working models of hydroelectric dams or homemade computers.

And I guess there are parents who keep their distance through it all, limiting their contribution to an approving smile and a heartfelt “well done” as they load the project into the family car.

I just don’t know any of them.

In my neck of the woods, the annual science project routine has risen above educational exercise to become a striking symbol of parental participation run amok.

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The reality in our house is that science projects are an extension of our communal approach toward homework--an ethic that emerges each year despite my best efforts and without my consent.

I realized I’d gotten a little too involved in my children’s after-school work when I heard myself telling a friend, for the third time in as many weeks, “I’d love to, but I can’t possibly join you tonight. We’ve got way too much homework to finish.”

It’s homework most nights of the nuts-and-bolts variety--spelling words to study, multiplication tables to memorize, sentences to diagram . . . routine stuff that I once imagined my kids would do alone, while I hovered in the background baking chocolate chip cookies and slicing apples for snacks.

But despite standing orders that homework be done before Mommy gets home from work, there often is some late-night discovery of an assignment undone or a frantic greeting by a tearful child who just doesn’t get the math assignment. And then there are those homework papers that begin “Ask your parents . . . .”

While I stop short of doing my children’s work, the supervising, checking, editing and suggesting draw me into the process in ways that surely would seem strange to my own mom, whose help was mostly limited to yelling out at me from the kitchen now and then:

“You’d better get inside and get your homework done!”

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As you’re reading this, my children’s projects are on proud display at a school science fair crowded with poster board exhibits and working models of everything from wind machines to rocket boosters.

I don’t know what my kids will think as they survey the room, searching for the blue ribbons that signal science fair success.

But I do know what their mother will think: about days spent driving to libraries and bookstores and arts and crafts shops; long nights painting and gluing, measuring and calculating; hours on weekends assembling wooden structures and mounting Styrofoam balls.

I’m sure their projects have taught my kids plenty: how shadows are affected by the rotation of the Earth, what it took to build a medieval castle and what makes Venus different from Earth.

Me, I’m grateful just to have survived the annual marathon of science fair preparation. And I’m looking forward to this scene in the parents’ lounge:

“Hey, Sandy, how’d you do?”

“Great,” I’ll say. “We got an A.”

* Sandy Banks’ column is published Mondays and Fridays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.