Wonderful and superb!
Over the past 10 years I have led a lot of IB workshops which almost always include a session on the EE and that gives me the opportunity to tell some stories of my experiences, good and bad. One of the good stories involves Susanna Wong.
Susanna had noticed that when walking along the main drive at night there were haloes around the street lights, she asked if she could research this for her EE. Perfect, a student who really wants to know the answer to a question, the best starting point. The first thing to do was to recreate the halo in the lab so we went through a series of experiments to find the source.
Scratches on the glass? No.
Mist? No. This was a particularly difficult experiments as we had to fill the room with water vapour by boiling kettles of water.
By chance it was noticed that if you view a halo through your fingers you can still see it. They are formed in the eye. Measurements were made using just a ruler that confirmed the hypothesis. Problem solved. The essay was submitted into a competition and Susanna won a rather nice camera.
It now appears that I have been lying all these years, she didn't win a camera she won a Nobel prize, well a trip to the award ceremony in Stockholm at least.
Here is the essay, I particularly like the acknowledgements and the title.