Some detractors believe science is an 'old boys network' resistant to outsiders - if that were true, a group of young boys and girls wouldn't have their first journal publication. At age eight.
Biology Letters has a study conducted by an English elementary school (Devon) and the young investigators examined the way bees see colors and patterns (buff-tailed bumble-bee - Bombus terrestris). Their lab? A local churchyard.
Using the scientific method and time-honored experimental procedures, they "provide convincing evidence that bees can transpose between learned colour, pattern and spatial cues when encountering changes in a coloured scene."
They didn't do any statistical analyses - they're good but accurate calbration of numerical models is tough for most adult scientists much less eight year olds - but it was still interesting enough and methodologically valid enough to get published by the Royal Society. Clearly the curiosity of childhood is the perfect complement to the skepticism and attention to detail that typifies the scientific method. I hope we see more from these young folks and a lot more in other schools.
Citation: P. S. Blackawton, S. Airzee, A. Allen, S. Baker, A. Berrow, C. Blair, M. Churchill, J. Coles, R. F.-J. Cumming, L. Fraquelli, C. Hackford, A. Hinton Mellor, M. Hutchcroft, B. Ireland, D. Jewsbury, A. Littlejohns, G. M. Littlejohns, M. Lotto, J. McKeown, A. O'Toole, H. Richards, L. Robbins-Davey, S. Roblyn, H. Rodwell-Lynn, D. Schenck, J. Springer, A. Wishy, T. Rodwell-Lynn, D. Strudwick, and R. B. Lotto, 'Blackawton bees', Biol. Lett. published online before print December 22, 2010, doi:10.1098/rsbl.2010.1056
