• Clear Science Education, as Judged by 11-Year-Olds

    Alan Alda helped create a contest that pushes scientists to inspire young people, not lose them with jargon

    In the world of scientific peer-review, there’s a new crowd in town: 11-year-olds.

    Over the past four years, thousands of fifth- and sixth-graders from more than 30 U.S. states and 18 other countries have been judges in an annual competition called the Flame Challenge, rating grown-up scientists on their answers to basic questions about how the world works: What is time? What is color? What is sleep? The students also come up with the questions.


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