Science Fair

Does your school have a science fair? If so, who participates? Is it required in some classes, all classes or is it completely voluntary? Any comments you can share about your science fair would be appreciated. We just held our 26th science fair and have revamped and revised it many times over the years. We have had hundreds of projects some years from those that received superiors at the state level to some that should never have been judged to small numbers with most of those projects advancing to districts and we have had everything in between. With all the demands on the high school teachers and their students we are wondering how to maintain a quality fair and still teach everything the state expects students to know for the mandated testing which also occurs at science fair time.

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Comment by Charles Miller on March 9, 2008 at 8:49am: Even though this is slightly off of Leslie's topic, I often wonder how to get students motivated and interested in these kinds of projects which can be very time consuming. I found this article in the NY Times that really shows that when students who are interested in science, even in more difficult situations, like ours at Alliance, can and do get out and make a difference in the science community. If we can motivate and nurture certain students, we may find that they will go the extra mile.

Even though we, as teachers, want to give all students the opportunity to get involved in the scientific process and experience, maybe Science Fair is ultimately about finding those 10-20 students in five-hundred who will do it, who we can nurture, who want to participate and will try to do there best to learn and involve themselves in complex scientific problems. This was a good one... I hope you'll check it out.
A Science Prodigy in an Unlikely Place