As a black guy raised by his mother and who has a sister who works in tech this whole ordeal really bugged me. I like to hear stories of girls getting involved in science and technology and Kiera's story was the exact opposite. Like another commenter here said, I dont know if she will be the next brilliant scientist. However, I do know that she is a curious kid and her curiosity should be encouraged and developed even if she makes some minor mistakes along the way.
Hopefully more people in a position to do something will reach out to more girls to get them involved in science. They shouldn't have to be wronged horribly by the adults in the community to deserve some attention.
Like Kiera Wilmot, like Zach Sobiech [1], like Aaron Swartz, we collectively tend to "wait until it's too late" before recognizing and appreciating special things about people around us.
I think we can do better to recognize, encourage, and support those around us who go beyond what they're told to do or what may seem prudent. I'll be doing my best to combat that urge to scoff at things at first glance -- that bad habit that gets even the best of us at times.
That's nice of Space Camp to reach out to her like that. I don't know if Kiera Wilmot is going to be the next brilliant scientist or not but I do know she seemed like a bright, interested student who was unfairly targeted by our schools' protofascist zero tolerance policies. I could imagine it would put a distaste for involvement in science in your mouth if you were persecuted for what's an obvious nothing story, so I hope Space Camp's nice gesture does something to counteract that.
Also Space Camp is sweet, I spent a week there as a kid. I didn't go through the official program but I saw and experienced a lot of it and it's one of the most unique and fun youth programs in the world.
I did Space Camp a couple years after the movie came out. I'm still mad about getting stuck with being the Public Relations Officer in Ground Control on the shuttle mission at the end.
I went with my cousin about 10 years ago. I was a Mission Specialist and got to do the EVA. He was stuck in ground control. It was a tense plane ride home :-)
from Michigan. It made for a very interesting couple of days sleeping in a courthouse in the northern part of Tennessee and then a Methodist church in the southern part of Tennessee.
I'm glad the charges were dropped. No one was hurt and that fact needs to be considered before ruining a kid's life.
But in all likelihood she built a Drano bomb, probably after watching one of the millions of YouTube videos on the subject, and blew it up on school property. She's not a martyr for science, nor a role model for girls in STEM, and frankly it is a little offensive that's the line people are sticking with.
> No one was hurt and that fact needs to be considered before ruining a kid's life.
Victimless crimes are 86% of the federal prison population. There is a bigger problem of what types of crimes the state is spending it's time enforcing.
Victimless crimes including drunk driving, weapons charges, immigration and liquor law violations. Moreover the statistics are listed for the most serious offense that the individual was incarcerated for. So it is very likely that the someone is serving time under a draconian drug law that also committed a lesser violent crime.
I made Drano bombs and set them off on school property when I was a kid, and I turned out pretty good. I mostly pay my taxes and everything. It's not my understanding that that's what happened here, but if it is, it's still a tragedy that this notion of charging a child with a felony for tinkering with interesting chemical reactions got as far as it did.
Children are expected to behave irresponsibly. Adults should be expected to behave responsibly. It is horribly irresponsible to attempt to ruin a child's life over a mistake that lots of kids have made and will make in the future. This is a stern talking to situation, not a "call the feds, it's time to put this kid in jail" situation, and every adult that signed off on the idea of taking this to a criminal level should be really ashamed of themselves.
I kind of wonder why having her record sealed would matter at all. I suppose it helps keep her off of inconvenient watch lists, but the extensive coverage has almost made her a public figure.
You ever filled out an application and gotten to that ubiquitous question: "Have you ever been arrested for ... or charged with ..."?
Sure, this case will always be on the internet, unfortunately. But at least then someone googling will get some context. At the very least she doesn't have to (legally) lie on that question after this.
FWIW, USCIS insists on all of its forms that you must tell them if you've ever been charged or convicted of a crime, even if your record was sealed or you were pardoned.
Technically true, but if you say no, and they later somehow find out about it, they will say you were misrepresenting yourself to USCIS and ban you from the country for life. This is not hyperbole; that's the response that misrepresentation carries.
I think it's the potential for harm that makes her punishment somewhat justified. Not unlike charging someone for driving drunk, when they haven't actually run anyone over yet.
I knew a guy in high school that got expelled in the middle of his senior year, because cops turned up an airsoft gun in the trunk of his car after they brought drug dogs through our school parking lot (this was done routinely, inside the school and also in the parking lot, probably still is). That to me is a much worse example of how far these "zero-tolerance" polices get taken.
Kids will do stupid things, but you have to instruct them on not doing stupid things, which is going to include negative consequences for doing stupid things. That's part of growing up.
Except in my day it was detention and a call to your parents. Today it's expulsion and felony charges? Sorry, that's not part of growing up. That's ruining the rest of your life for a stupid mistake (that caused no one harm).
Agreed, expulsion and felony charges are excessive. A girl like this one can understand the stupidity of her actions without career-killing consequences.
An appropriate negative consequence for this particular stupid thing might have been, for example, a stern admonishment not to do that again, with some explanation of the protocols involved in getting permission for such an experiment.
Felony charges are ludicrous, a mindless reaction.
So a question, do scientists not make a distinction between blowing things up for fun and blowing things up for an organized scientific experiment?
I understand that blowing things up and having fun can be part of a scientific experiment, but that doesn't mean any time that someone makes an explosion that they're participating in a scientific experiment, unless we're using a very loose definition of the word.
My favorite science teachers in high school and junior high blew things up for fun all the time. Curiosity is the important factor driving people into science.
I think that the definition of a "scientific" experiment should include harmless fun that leads to an exploration of science. I'd argue that children (young children especially) are the world's most active scientists. Every time they throw something, climb something, jump off of something, fall down, get up, etc. they're conducting a physics experiment.
If calling a just-for-fun HCl+Al bomb a science experiment helps the world to gain another scientist, or even just a well-rounded, open minded, curious adult, then yes, let's blur the distinction between blowing stuff up for fun and "science".
Blowing things up is fun, and kids should be able to blow things up for fun if it gets them interested in science. But they should do it at a safe distance from behind a blast shield. Still fun, but much safer.
If a kid is curious about their parent's gun after seeing guns fired on youtube, is it okay for them to take it and fire it into the wall or ground at school or even home?
Drano bomb idea had to come from online or a friend demonstrating it previously.
I think expulsion is too far. I think suspension would be appropriate at best.
The issues is that, for every Kiera Wilmot, there are a dozen kids, many of them with substantial potential, who adhere to the rules and elect not to detonate draino bombs in the school bathroom, but no one makes an effort to aid them.
This story is just indicative of the perverse nature of publicity: those that break the rules are the ones who reap the rewards and publicity.
If only we really were... Blowing up stuff is one of the best introductions to science a kid can get!
If a kid today were to do now what I did as a kid, they'd have a criminal record a mile long, destined to be nothing more than a drain on society since they'd be permanently branded and unemployable in most places. That's not a good way to build up your future economy and industry, not to mention international competitiveness!
Punishing a child by permanently destroying their hopes and dreams shows some badly misplaced priorities.
People argue as though there is some sort of dichotomy; that either she ought to be prosecuted or exonerated entirely. Both are absurd. What she did was dangerous and clearly impermissible, and the school should take action. I don't think that this warranted legal action, but I've learned not to assert things about the law, which is a complex and unintuitive beast. There is a possibility of reasonable middle ground in which we don't permanently impede someone's ability to live their life while also deterring them from detonating explosives in school.
Hopefully more people in a position to do something will reach out to more girls to get them involved in science. They shouldn't have to be wronged horribly by the adults in the community to deserve some attention.