Why in the world does an experiment to try to culture mouth bacteria from a toothbrush require extensive paperwork and professional oversight?
In fact, it has given rise to a cottage industry of science fair mentors-for-hire. If you can find a highly enough motivated high school teacher to manage the paperwork, and can find a lab that has the correct rating for whatever you are doing, then great for you. Otherwise, there are a few places that can provide lab space and a mentor at an hourly fee, not to mention experience in getting the mountain of paperwork correct. It is good to have money to rub on the problem -- I'm sure a lot of kids get left behind because of that.
My daughter did an electronics project -- and the paperwork was still daunting, even though we could check "N/A" to all the biohazzard management sections, lab-has-eyewash, mentor qualified to handle animal tissues, etc. We still had to submit schematics and test plan material -- which is OK I guess because it is probably worthwhile to see if the project involves a direct connection to 220V AC mains before things get out of hand.
In the end though, one of the biggest problems with science fairs is getting enough qualified judges. The kids pour countless hours into the project, and hope for a 5-10 minute visit from 4 judges. If you are lucky, the judge might actually have a clue about your area of science or technology. Then the judging team tries to figure out some winners. One of the best ways anyone here on HN could help is to volunteer an afternoon per year to be a judge. Fairs are always short of qualified judges. Heck, they are short of judges that can fog a mirror. The best thing you can do for these kids is give them your time to encourage them and hopefully nudge the system towards a rational result.
My school's science fair just required the teacher to sign off on it that it wasn't dangerous. My experiment involved running electricity through water (to turn rust back into metal), and no one cared.
After the informational meeting, I told my kid, point blank, "No people. No animals. Plants. How about a nice experiment involving plants?"
All that without paperwork, and I'm not even very old -- I'm only in my early 20s.
Is this primarily the case in the US, or did I just manage to avoid it during my school days? I performed experiments that were probably no safer than those described here[0], and the only hurdle I had to pass was satisfying my teacher that it was safe enough (which boiled down to an informal a) you've thought about the risks, and b) aren't reckless; no actual paperwork)
[0] e.g. giving 16/17 year old unsupervised access to a 5kV power supply. The current used wasn't dangerous (pretty unpleasant to be shocked by though!), but it would destroy equipment easily (we went through 10+ multimetres, even though they were allegedly rated for that voltage) and the spark would set fire things pretty easily (paper, leaves, etc.)
There are industry-standard protocols for performing this kind of work, and the school has a clear responsibility to ensure they are followed.
I've worked in high-energy or high-risk systems nearly all of my career. There is such a thing as managed risk. The school didn't tell the family that they couldn't do the experiment. Instead, they owned up to the fact that the school didn't know how to manage this particular situation's risks correctly, and instead deferred to someone who did. That's a totally rational and reasonable response.
Growing bacteria in agar is something that was completely de rigueur in elementary school when I was in elementary school in the 1980s. If this is a high-risk activity, I'm sure you'll have no problem finding some account of it every having done any damage in the conservatively hundreds of thousands of times it was done.
The difference between petri dishes with what was often a specified bacteria/mold and the bacteria from a person's mouth should be self-evident.
As brandmeyer pointed out, the girl may have had bacteria while showing no sign of having an illness (example given was strep throat). Having a small amount of the bacteria and then raising a colony of it could pose some risk of getting others sick.
Imagine if she had somehow fostered a deadly pathogen on her toothbrush and through a mistake outside of her level of expertise managed to contaminate something/herself.
The mentorship of a professional was probably for safety reasons. Safely handling bacteria, avoiding contamination, etc. Which is partially why a risk assessment had to be filed (what are the chances of a deadly pathogen being raised in the samples?). Please correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how I understood the situation.
I don't believe safety regulations should be waived for minors because "reasons" or "fostering an interest in science". Even if that makes life unfair.
The idea was to try to kill bacteria in the toothbrush after she used it. By definition, she was already "infected". Does she need a waiver every time she is going to brush her teeth? Because I guarantee the toothbrush is not routinely subjected to that level of sterilization.
The only argument I can think of is that she could be creating bacteria more resistant to whatever was that she was trying to use to disinfect. But if that's a problem, then we should all focus on banning antibacterial soap first.
Excess paperwork never solves any problems.