It will soon be the time when many schools go into Science Fair mode, with reactions from students (and perhaps some teachers) that range from cheers of excitement to groans of despair. This month’s Science and Children should be required reading for any teacher whose students are going to be involved in science fairs. I also would encourage secondary teachers to review these articles, especially if your students are novices at science fairs or if you’re looking for some fresh ideas.
The S&C editor notes that when she Googled “science fair” there were more than 2 million entries! Fortunately for SciLinks users, if you enter “science fair” in the keyword search you’ll get a manageable list of 21 sites to get you and your students started!
Getting started was the hardest part for my students. The Science Buddies website has a “topic selection wizard” that guides students through the process of selecting and fine-tuning a topic. This site has sections that can help students with planning a project and teachers with planning a science fair (including rubrics for evaluating projects). If you only have time for one site (and not 2 million), this should be it!
The authors of the S&C article Four Tools for Science Fair Success also recommend Science Buddies, and the article has timelines, rubrics, and suggestions for helping students who may not have resources at home. Other articles in this issue discuss topics such as involving kindergarten students and conducting online science fairs or science expos.
There’s been a lot of talk recently that a lockstep “Scientific Method” is not always how real scientists conduct investigations, as the author of the Science 101 article describes. The article More Than One Way to Investigate illustrates the differences between experimental and descriptive studies and how both are authentic ways to study science.
For students who do a experiment for their projects, the authors of the archived Science Scope article Non-Traditional Characteristics of a Successful Science Fair Project describe six characteristics of high quality projects, and they include a rubric for assessing a student’s presentation.
You may also want to check out the resources that are part of the website of the National History Day competition. Although the topics are different, the resources include a questionnaire to help students decide whether to do an individual or a group project. This competition has several categories that reflect the authentic work of historians: documentary, exhibit, paper, performance. Each category has its own rubric. These resources could be modified for your science fair. If you’ve ever been to a NHD showcase, you won’t find any pretzel-stick log cabins! These students are doing history, just as your students will do science. (I hope your school does not require students to do both history and science projects at the same time!)
If you’ve never been involved in a science fair before, the Georgia Department of Education website has resources to help you plan and organize a science fair, from student worksheets, letters to parents, a template for a program booklet, timelines, and examples of rubrics.
With these articles and the related SciLinks websites, you and your students should be ready to go!