My sixth grade Science Fair project was on the freezing point of water.
That's a great way to start. I won the third prize. Put a cup of
water in the freezer.
wrote:
this is great that you are interested in the science behind nordic
skiing.

- there is still too much Voodoo in ski waxing

- most of the published scientific research is in Nordic languages.
Finland got its ski tunnel that allows modelling of skiing
all-year-round.

- research institutions in this country that have the capability to
conduct good scientific research are not interested in Nordic skiing.
But the fact that schools like MIT, Harvard, etc are in "skiable"
states and have nordic teams helps. Someone just need to get interested
in the subject (and not to expect getting rich overnight based on
results of the research).

- search this group for "Leonid Kuzmin". He claims to have conducted
scientific reasearch on ski glide, and his thesis is available online.
I don't find his study scienitific, but at least there is a list of
references in his thesis, and some of the papers may even be in English.