After my completely depressing post last week, at least there is hope. An elementary school class in the UK recently published (in a real journal!) a study on bees. For this study, with the guidance of their teacher, they brainstormed, formulated an experiment, carried out the experiment, and wrote the paper, which included hand-drawn figures. Pretty impressive stuff for 8-year-olds! I wish I had an elementary school teacher with this idea. With a little help from their teacher, the students also managed to get their paper published in a reputable journal (click here for the article, which is free until January 1). Ed Yong over at Discover Blogs has a nice write-up of the story, so head over there and read all about it.
