That is pretty disappointing to hear - Intel's execution and involvement with the fair has been a great model for all STEM competition. The other major high school research event, the Siemens Competition, seems much less rigorously conducted (they're dropping the finalist talks for teleconference presentations this year) and doesn't capture the same brand recognition that STS does.
Still, since so few students interact with STS compared to, say, ISEF, it may be that Intel is trying to expand its reach by de-emphasizing the elite and looking to support the broadband "maker movement." It is also unlikely that Google, which the article mentions, will pick up the banner - they run their own Google Science Fair (which hasn't yet captured the prestige of STS). We'll see how it goes, but I and many others will miss Intel's STS, the crown jewel of high school competition.
Not really, it suffers from the same issues that most STEM competitions do. The rewards go to the children of successful parents who gave their children important aspects of their own research or self-funded them to develop an existing idea.
The competition still has prestige, but most of the awardees didn't get where they are on their own abilities and interests.
While I agree that perhaps we could use some more diversity in science research competition, I think you underestimate the scale of work and dedication required - look at Sara Volz, the 2013 winner, who notably did much of her work in an improvised lab environment [1].
If you're interested, do take a look at the 2015 projects - Intel STS winners are by no means coddled or fed on "fake" science. Perhaps there is an undesirable concentration of talent in certain schools or regions, leading some to question the privilege enjoyed by the winners, but there is no doubt in my mind that the awardees have performed immensely well to deserve their honors. By the way, some of the best labs/resources are also offered through meritocratic selection - Harvard/MIT's RSI and Stanford's SIMR programs both offer excellent mentorship and cutting-edge resources to summer students through an application process. These students often end up winning these competitions too, with no parent involvement.
One positive light is that before, there was only one big science fair which sort of became the defacto prestigious award.
These days kids have so many more options for science fairs and competitions by discipline, but none of them would exist had it not been for the Intel Science Fair.
I'm not so convinced by the value of these big science fairs.
It seems that they're inevitably won by some kid whose parents just happen to be scientists, or who otherwise have a scientist in the family. And what they get that's valuable isn't just the access to the lab, it's the suggestion of a good project that's simple enough to do but which genuinely advances the field of science.
For everyone else, the science fair looks nothing like real science. They wind up spending a month playing music to a statistically insignificant number of plants, getting an inconclusive result which they will nonetheless try to sell as conclusive, and walk away thinking "Well, that was stupid".
I'm all for involving children in the process of doing real science (as opposed to the "experiments" they usually do, which are just demonstrations). But formulating and testing a proper scientific hypothesis that will genuinely advance the field is way beyond the capability of almost every child, and indeed most beginning PhD students, because they don't know where the limits of human knowledge are just yet.
I agree regarding influence of parents. I've seen projects that seemed to depend on access to lab equipment from a parent's lab.
Another problem is the competition concept itself, which is myopically focused on the lone genius concept. A lot of real science has to do with noticing others' work and collaborating with them effectively in a complementary way.
Support for Maker fairs may actually make sense for a change.
Collaboration has quickly become the de facto standard in the life sciences. There are examples in every discipline; to give you something specific would only highlight my ignorance of other fields. It happens between members of the same lab group, between groups and between institutions. The single-author publication is becoming a rarity.
For an example from my own experience, researcher A makes a groundbreaking discovery in a disease, and collaborates with mouse expert researcher B at a different institution to develop a model for this. For the most part, any paper in a respected journal with authors from various institutions reflects an aspect of this collaboration.
There are so many. Here is one from a couple of friends. The two groups in this case are the Mars rover scientists, who want to get more usable images of their science targets, and the automated planning and scheduling CS types, who have software that can identify them (if they know what they are looking for), and dynamically change the activity plan in response.
I agree with you -- I never participated in these science fairs myself, but I attended a couple of summer programs where the majority of my cohort ended up submitting to these contests. The vast majority of people I knew who submitted (a statistically significant sample ~50) either seemed to have parents who worked in academia, or lived near a university, or just came from an incredibly privileged background (east coast new england andover/exeter or west coast harvard westlake). "Talent search" isn't quite right.
On the subject of whether the children who are involved end up doing real science -- I think they do, or at least they get a inkling sense of the research process. But aside from the difficulty of ascertaining the limits of human knowledge, they are also protected from the very real logistical aspects of the research process. Mostly, their papers don't get submitted to journals. Mostly, they won't be writing grants to fund their work. Mostly, they don't really have to join a lab for the next N years and develop significant working relationships with their peers and advisors.
Fully agree with this. Those kids who grow up in an academically oriented family are most likely to be even aware of such contests. The other problem is that many schools in the US don't give the students enough time to work on a meaningful long-term project.
I hadn't even heard of STS until I got to college. I was pretty disappointed that I hadn't had a chance to participate simply because I didn't know I could.
Can't blame parents with resources for raising kids with lots of opportunities. Isn't it what every parent would do if they could? Its the whole point of being successful - giving your kids a good start.
And those arguments are nowhere near the STS. It was (is?) the real deal.
One personally annoying thing about this article is that it mentions Ray Kurzweil as a previous winner, citing him as "well-known author and director of engineering at Google". He's done so many interesting, worthwhile things but taking a paycheck from an ad business is considered his peak?
It's not bitterness at all. It's like identifying Abraham Lincoln as "railroad lawyer" or Harry Truman as "haberdasher". Is "Once employed by Google" to be Guido Van Rossum's epitaph?
Still, since so few students interact with STS compared to, say, ISEF, it may be that Intel is trying to expand its reach by de-emphasizing the elite and looking to support the broadband "maker movement." It is also unlikely that Google, which the article mentions, will pick up the banner - they run their own Google Science Fair (which hasn't yet captured the prestige of STS). We'll see how it goes, but I and many others will miss Intel's STS, the crown jewel of high school competition.