Often, the first model wouldn't work very well, so the group would argue about how to strengthen it. Some would offer up new data they'd collected, and suggest tweaks to the model. "They'd be sitting around arguing about what model was the best, which was most predictive," Steinkuehler recalls.
That's when it hit her: The kids were practicing science.
While I have the highest respect for my esteemed colleagues in Madison, I find myself disagreeing with Steinkuehler's conclusions. These kids are not practicing science, they're practicing being human beings. And as human beings, we find new and inventive ways to meet a challenge whenever one is presented to us.
All one needs to do is look back through history. Aliens didn't build the pyramids; humans did. Humans who were given the seemingly impossible task rose to the challenge and made it happen. The Flavian Amphitheatre (aka the Coliseum) didn't just appear when someone pulled the plug on a drain and the water swirled around. Humans wanted a better place to host their blood sport. So they devised a new method. Trains didn't start moving themselves. Humans had a problem of not enough labor. So they devised a solution.
Which isn't to say that these many engineering feats were devoid of what we today think of as "science". However, it is important to remember that the scientific process (i.e. the thing that separates "science" from simply "effort") is a formalized process that vets the actual facts from the statistical noise. If you are not following the formalized methodology, you are not performing "science".
Which isn't to say that I don't think these kids deserve mad props. They used their brains and were rewarded for it. Which is something to be proud of in a comfortable modern society that makes it all too easy to turn one's brain to the "off" position. :-)
