Anon-Admin's Journal: My daughters science fair project

Well it is science fair time and my daughter has decided that she wants to enter. There is a short time frame on this. They have only given us 2 months to come up with and do the experiment. This eliminated most of the plant experiments as well as the hydroponic experiments that she wanted to do. So I thought to my self "Time for some great science fun!" Only to have every idea we have come up with shot down by the teachers.

Ideas so far.

#1) The extraction of naturally occurring MAOI's from local plants.
              a) Can we extract natural MAOIS?
              b) Can the natural MAOI's help mom with here moods?

        Shot down for the following reasons
              1) Extraction of MAOIs may violate the controlled substances act
              2) Human and animal testing is not allowed.

#2) The generation of hydrogen in sufficient quantity to run a vehicle.
              a) Can we separate H2O at a sufficient speed to produce the hydrogen needed to run a car?
              b) At what rate can we produce hydrogen by the separation of H2O into hydrogen and Oxygen?
#3) Can we make a philosophers torch?
          a) How does it work?
          b) Why does it work?
#4) Can we do tests with thermite?

                  All Shot down for the following reasons
                          1) It could be dangerous to work with hydrogen.
                          2) We can not do anything that burns or explodes.

#5) A microscopic taxonomy of the commercially available Ps. Cubensis mushroom spores.
                a) Are all the spores of this species the same or are there sub-species within the commercial strains?
                b) Are the commercial strains different that local wild strains?

                Shot down for the following reasons
                  1) Although the spores are legal, this is considered to be drug related and no entry can involve drugs or drug related items.
                  2) Picking the wild strains my be in violation of the controlled substances act. Possession of a schedule 1 narcotic.

#6)An examination of the radioactive decay of U238 in comparison to Am243.
              a) Do both substances provide the same amount of radioactive decay when placed in proximity to a CCD imaging chip?
              b) What are the differenced in the radiation between the two substances?

              Shot down for the following reasons
                1) NO RADIOACTIVE SUBSTANCES!!!
                            No other reasons stated.

So we are 1 week in and still no ideas that they will accept.

You've gotta be kidding

[illumin8]

It's a sad day for science when people can't even do experiments on non-controlled strains of mushroom plants because they might "appear" to look like a controlled substance. This has got to be crazy. Also, extracting MAOIs from plants isn't illegal, unless you're making a controlled substance.

Talk about limiting. Now I know the real reasons for all of the controlled substance acts: They just don't want you researching anything that might put the pharmaceutical companies out of business.