LABRats: The Mad Scientist's Club Meets Scouting

Some random reader sent in this note: "The Society for Amateur Scientists (SAS), an organization that exists to help those with a love of science make new discoveries, has launched a youth program called LABRats to help young people do real science. There's a white paper available describing the program, which is something of a cross between the Mad Scientist's Club and the Boy/Girl Scouts. The idea is to train a small army of young scientists and engineers, 12-18 years old, to do experiments and solve problems in their communities by teaming them up with adult scientist/engineer mentors. Those who advance through the ranks of the program would have to complete a series of experiments, projects, and other tasks that demonstrate proficiency in the basics of science and engineering. The creators -- including Shawn Carlson, a MacArthur Fellow -- aim to make the highest rank comparable in difficulty to Eagle Scout. One of the SAS local chapters in Connecticut built an astronomical observatory, which was used by high school student Lisa Glukhovsky to measure the distance to near-earth asteroids. She was one of three Grand Prize winners in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for 2003. It sounds like a great idea to me. Sure, I'm a little worried that a few misguided youth might take the program's motto -- "Do the experiment!" -- a bit too literally when working on their Nuclear Engineering merit badge. But then again, maybe someday a LABRat will spot an asteroid with our name on it -- and tell NASA."