Science Fair Time

What a tiring, but exciting weekend.  Every year one of the local middle school teachers puts on a science fair.  It has been my pleasure to help “judge” the experiments and models for the past two years.  Although it makes for a few long, exhausting days I cannot wait till next year to do it all over again!

Students in 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade all participate.  Starting in January, the teacher walks through all the aspects of an experiment with the students.  They discuss how to take a question and turn it into a hypothesis.  They address how it is important to only have one independent variable.  Research is conducted to help them better understand their chosen topic.  Each student not only addresses whether their conclusion was correct or not, but why the results turned out they way they did and what they changes they would make if they did the project again.  They even keep a “time log” of each step in the journey.  I love seeing all the projects!

Unfortunately, this school is in the minority in my area.  Very few schools host a science fair.   Why? 

It is time consuming.  The teacher from this weekend’s fair did not spend the last three months only on science fair material, but a significant amount of class time is needed.  However, isn’t this what science is about?  Scientific inquiry, learning how to solve problems, applying skills…these are the things I hope our student are learning.  As much as I love my chemistry, I know that very few students will ever need to know how to balance a chemical equation, but science fair has something that all students learn from.  Isn’t it worth the time?

“Saving the science fair: why bother?” by Nick Mitchell is a great post on how the science fair can be beneficial.  One of the points he makes is that it is often seen as a huge competition.  There is too much stress on winning.  One of the things I love about the fair I helped judge this weekend is how they handled this aspect.  Students brought in their projects on Friday afternoon.  Friday evening and all day Saturday, a team of judges, without students present, scored each of the projects using the same rubric.  Students are provided this same rubric before they even begin their experiments.  Each project was scored twice and then the scores were averaged.  Students received a ribbon based on their score. In theory each project could have received a blue ribbon.  Of course, that does not happen, but each student receives detailed, specific feedback on why they did not receive all the points they could have.  I think the feedback is one of the most important aspects of the whole process!

If a science fair is something you are interested in, Nick Mitchell has a couple other great articles,  The Craft of Coaching, and Picking a Project Pitfalls that you may be interested in. 

If you are a parent, groaning because it is science fair season, this article may help you.

So what are your thoughts on the science fair?  Is this something you do in your school?  What ways have you found to make it successful?  Is it a waste of precious time or an investment in learning?  I would love to hear from you!