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science fair ideas
I am new to my district and they are looking to revamp how it is run.......we want to make the students really get into it and have a great time while learning.
Any suggestions of what works well in your district?
Any suggestions of what works well in your district?
Views: 42
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Karolee Smiley on
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Are you looking at running a district-wide science fair or a school site fair?
I have been doing science fair at my sites for 16 years and can share how we handle that, but at the district level you need to coordinate and disseminate information in a much different way. I am hoping my district science coordinator will get a chance to chime in here. She has been through specialized training, has attended the national science fair, and has run our district fair.
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Permalink Reply by Kristen Palumbo on
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The fair is just at my school, in the gym.
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Permalink Reply by Dawn Pray on -
I have been doing science fair for 3 years, and I am now at a new school where they haven't done it below the high school level- even though students need to complete two science fairs successfully in high school to receive credit to graduate.
Since it is their first time doing a science fair, I coordinate everything at school- they do their experiment at home, but all of the analyzing, research, creating of their tri-fold board are all done at school. They pretty much can do what they want, as long as I approve of the project. Also, I have done it both with partners and independently, and I have found that doing it independently is much easier.
Allowing them to do a project of their choice is the number one way to get them motivated to learn. Also, when you make a big deal about judging and "awards night" they seem to get pretty excited that they get to show their work to the community. I also have the high school seniors help judge, and I invite the younger grades to come view their projects- they seem pretty proud of themselves when others are focused on them (as middle school students believe that life is all about me, me, me!)
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Permalink Reply by Mary Henton on -
Dawn,
Thanks for sharing. I can imagine that allowing the students to choose the project is empowering. Provides an opportunity to assume ownership (don't we ALL need that?). Also am impressed with the process of putting the experimentation part on the students' shoulders to do at their own time, at home, but facilitate the analysis and research part in school. In that way, you're supporting students' development of those skills.
Inviting high school students to help judge is brilliant. I can imagine middle school students appreciating the attention and opportunity to interact with high school students. Also a great way to provide high school students the opportunity to serve and utilize their knowledge and experience.
M
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Permalink Reply by Sandra Bureau on -
For the past three years I have done a science fair for my entire middle school. It's a small school and I am the only middle school science teacher. Any way I teach the scientific method over the course of the year and I use the science fair as their final exam. We start in earnest working on it full time in May. I like the science buddies web site and use their materials for the most part. Each student chooses their own question, for the past two years we have concentrated on environmental themes. They read the literature, develop the hypothesis and research method then conduct it and present the results at the fair. I give them a grade and then I have science people come in from the community to judge. The PTSO donated trophies and savings bonds for winners.
I think this it is incredibly worthwhile. Since we do it at the end of the year as a summative assessment of their understanding of science, oh yes, I work with the English teacher too so kids are assessed in public speaking, presentation and writing, we generate a list of questions as we complete material through out the year. The students usually use these questions as the basis for their research. So we end up with real experimental investigations. This year my 7th and 8th graders added some statistical analysis to evaluate whether their were truly differences between controls and experimental results. It was great!
Now here's the rub. All this scientific method stuff is in the NYS Learning Standards for middle school but the exit assessment in 8th grade doesn't really test for this, really much more content laden. Anyway, my students do just fine on the exam. Maybe its because they learned some of that content in such a real and engaging way?
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Permalink Reply by Kayla Fay on -
I don't know if you guys are looking for a registration management system, but I ran across this one the other day, and it looks great. http:www.oursciencefair.com. It seems to me that it would cut down on the paperwork process, and help the organizers enjoy the science part a little bit more.
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I have been doing school science fairs for many years. It sounds like ours is similar to Sandra's, just on a larger scale. This year, we are looking at four full-time teachers coordinating our fair with over 600 students.
Over the years, our department has tried several minor tweaks and changes. Each year we review what we want to do differently for the next year. This helps improve our fair by keeping everything standardized, communicating our vocabulary and expectations consistently, setting up timelines and spreading out the workload.
From the teacher end, the big thing I have learned over the years is that it really helps to be open-minded and be be able to customize to your sites needs. What works at one school just doesn't stand a chance at another. If it doesn't feel right, it may not be the right fit for your school so feel free to flex things. For example, at our school just booking the gym can be a major hurdle. I have had years where each teacher had all their displays in their own rooms because there wasn't any facility open to accommodate the fair. That gets to be very difficult, but its better than canceling the event due to facilities issues.
One of the most important steps I have found in class management is student planning of the project. I let students chose their own project, but this is the hardest part for them. They love being in control of their project, but they often do not know where to begin. They also may not think through all the steps or consequences of the project. I have students develop and submit their experiments for approval to make sure that it is 1) ethical and 2) safe, and 3) scientifically sound. One and two are obvious points and necessary to make sure that kids aren't doing anything inappropriate. But three ensures that students have a design that will work and not cause frustration later. Simple problems that arise is a method of data collection. I do require students to make a graph of their data. If they are testing which soap removes stains better by washing it once and seeing which looks better, there isn't any data to graph. We can plan ahead with some quantitative data they can collect for analysis in advance.
For those kids who do not know where to start, Science Buddies has a "topic selection wizard" that asks kids questions about what they like. It has a variety of science fair ideas grouped into branches of science. It also has an "Ask and Expert" where students can get some additional help.
Its a great non-profit program, using volunteers and donations to provide support for kids and try to motivate them to get involved in the Intel International Science Fair. There is also teacher advice including timelines, grading rubrics, and resources and worksheets.
This is a great time to think about it. My timeline is usually around 13 weeks. So, I am kicking off my discussion of Science Fair when we return from winter break in January. I always allow a large amount of time to experiment since plant related projects take several weeks for the plants to grow enough for useful data.
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thank you for all of your help!
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Permalink Reply by Mary Henton on
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I haven't had to organize a science fair, but a quick scan of this website convinces me to use this service if I ever had to!
Kayla Fay said:I don't know if you guys are looking for a registration management system, but I ran across this one the other day, and it looks great. http:www.oursciencefair.com. It seems to me that it would cut down on the paperwork process, and help the organizers enjoy the science part a little bit more.
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So, does anyone encourage their students to move on to regional science fairs, like the Intel ISEF?
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Permalink Reply by Kim Lightle on -
I've started to capture this wonderful discussion on a wiki page - Science Fairs 2.0. I've started to add resources at the bottom of the page - hope you'll help me flesh this out.
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Permalink Reply by Debbie Silver on
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Hi All!
I just joined this network, and I'm happy to see the important things being discussed!! I have a suggestion about science fairs. There is a book available from NSTA called Science Fairs Plus: Reinventing an Old Favorite, Grades K-8. It has some great ideas. It is available from the www.nsta.org website. There's even an article in there I wrote several years ago about science fairs.
At our school we turned the science fair idea into a Science Expo so that the traditional ISEF-ruled fair was only a small part of an all-day event. We also included a demonstration component for students who just wanted to demonstrate and explain a scientific phenomenon. In the demonstration part students could invite parents or grandparents to participate with them if they chose.
The 8th graders did a Family Fun Physics Room; they designed games based on physical science concepts and wrote questions in varying degrees of difficulty. Students and parents participated in the games and answered questions to win small prizes.
In a separate area the math department held a Metric Olympics. Each department sponsored a booth demonstrating how science is related to its particular discipline. We invited local businesses to set up booths that explained how science was important to their enterprise.
We had a helicopter from a local hospital land on the school yard; the attendants conducted tours of their equipment. The fire department brought in a fire truck and did the same thing. A group of ham radio operators came and set up stations for students learn about the old ham radios. Representatives from A T & T set up a display of the latest communication technology they had (they even debuted a device that had never been seen before the day of our event). There were other things going on all during the day -- all related to science.
We did it for each of the four years I taught at Keithville Elementary/Middle School in Shreveport, LA. It was a real community-relations builder, and it got everyone involved. I just thought my ideas might inspire some even better things from some of you!!
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