Science fair projects are the kind of authentic practice and assessment that educators and parents want. So, why do we hate it so much? I have guided hundreds of students through science fair and seen a dozen projects from my own children. Here’s my advice for teachers and parents:
For teachers
- Plan time for science fair in your curriculum. Do not just assign it and set a due date.
- Use Science Buddies for everything.
- Help students choose a project that suits them. Advise about time-consuming projects that involve plants or animals, and projects that might involve extra paperwork like human behavior and social science projects.
- Do some of the work in class: choosing possible problems, some background research, defining variables and hypothesis, procedure and materials draft, procedure peer review, practice presenting to peer “judges.”
- Do insist that students do background research, but don’t make them write a research paper. An annotated bibliography is a more appropriate assignment for upper elementary and middle schoolers, and will better engage reluctant writers.
- Set a schedule of deadlines and checkpoints far enough out to allow the types of projects your students might choose (i.e. growing plants, etc…)
- Communicate with parents, but don’t ever suggest that the project is their responsibility.
- This one is extremely important: Rubber cement is the best adhesive for sticking paper to tri-fold boards.
- Make projects due 2 days before your science fair. Get them graded (or take photos to grade later), and let students practice interviewing each other.
- For interviews, let students read their abstract as an introduction. Then teach them to say, to the judge, “What questions do you have?” This invites an interview that will reveal details of their work.
- Teach your judges that not everyone is into science fair. Some kids really want to impress them and win a ribbon, and some kids just want this to be over. Don’t mistake nervousness or lack of eye contact as lack of enthusiasm, but don’t spend a lot of time trying to pull additional information from a kid who doesn’t care about this.
- Whether your school chooses winners or not, celebrate! Celebrate everyone’s achievements and hard work!
Highly recommended: Robert Krampf’s Science Fair videos. His subscription fee is well worth it just for this one resource.
For Parents
- Don’t panic.
- Use Science Buddies for help if it’s not provided by your child’s teacher.
- Don’t choose your child’s topic for them, but don’t let them choose one that’s beyond your means as a family — financially, attention span, knowledge, or patience.
- Keep the schedule in mind. Will you have time to grow those plants from seed?
- Science fair can get expensive, but it doesn’t need to. Give your child a budget if you need to, and don’t forget the display board supplies you’ll need at the end.
- Let the problem be simple if that suits your child. Repeating someone else’s experiment is okay! In fact, it’s important that real scientists repeat each other’s work too, to verify results. Just don’t let your science fair projects be ordinary.
- Let your child tell you what help they need.
- Remember that your child has different standards of quality than you do. Their work is not a reflection on you. The final product should look like it was made by a kid.
- This one is extremely important: Rubber cement is the best adhesive for sticking paper to tri-fold boards.
- Another one for display boards: Consider getting an inexpensive paper cutter. It’s a good investment for middle school, trust me.
- If you hate science fair, don’t tell your child. And certainly don’t project your hate onto them. They might love science and science projects, and it would be a tragedy if they didn’t discover it.
- No matter the result, celebrate! It’s a big project and anyone who finishes it (even if it IS a family project) deserves a treat.
This is the introduction to many posts on this topic. What questions do you have?