STEM: RSPS Science Fair Review

Tonight was the 4th "annual" RSPS Science Fair, of which I was the coordinator.  I put "annual" in quotes since we technically skipped year 3.  A staple of any school's annual calendar, the science fair at our school has traditionally been very small.  Before I arrived, there was no science fair, and there still was none for a couple of years.  In 2008, a couple of enterprising parents (who also happened to work for Northrop Grumman) presented the school with a proposal where they would give the school a royalty to put their name all over a science fair.  Of course our principal accepted the proposal and the RSPS Science Fair was born.  Here we are 4 years (and 3 fairs) later. 

Science fairs are nice.  They give kids a chance to actually perform experiments and do the scientific method in a familiar setting (usually their own home).  Hopefully, they are able to solve a problem.  However, I for years have believed that science fairs have had several fundamental flaws in their design.  First and foremost, they take an idealized view of how kids view science.  Quite simply, no matter how much you advertise it, there is nothing you can do to convince a kid to do a science fair project "just because."  They either want to do it or they don't, plain and simple.  You can incentivize (cash prizes, extra credit, etc), but if you ask the average middle or high school kid if they "want" to do a science fair project, the answer would probably "no way!"  Why?  It is more work.  That's how most kids view science fair projects: just more work. 

Most schools realize that nothing can simulate the scientific method better than a science fair project, so they make the science fair mandatory for at least a portion of the student body.  I have always advocated that the best science fairs emphasize quality over quantity.  Many schools want to see entire gymnasiums full of rows of projects that they can photograph and publish in some newsletter.  It looks good.  Unfortunately (as I found out by judging the recent Mount St. Joseph science fair in February), most of those projects are extremely poor.  They are poor in the sense that:

a) They show little to no original thought (i.e. taken from a book or simply duplicate an experiment done before)
b) They show little or no pride of ownership
c) The student cannot answer any questions about their methods or data because they do not understand the science behind their project.

I can go on, but you get the idea.  You take away the mandatory, you will get fewer projects.  That's just a fact.  However, we had 20 student projects in our fair (plus a few projects done by classes as a way to introduce scientific method), and while they had their flaws to be sure, you could tell that every single student in that library was proud of the work they did and enjoyed talked to the judges, except for one poor kid who did a project on batteries.  I tried to explain the chemistry behind battery acid and how it conducts charge and he was completely lost.  He had a good project, but when I get off on a tangent about battery acid I have a tendency to lose people :-).  Anyway, everybody felt that the fair was a success.  The winning project was a 5th grade project done by a couple of girls interested in how effective Vitamin E is prevent aging.  Their project had its issues (using a rose petal does not exactly mimic human skin), but as I said, they were proud of the work they did, they did most of it on their own to be sure, and they had a pretty good idea about how to run an experiment.  They were in 5th grade, so you don't expect them to be experts, but they were happy to be there, and as a science teacher, that's what you want to see. 

The best science fairs are the ones that are able to convince kids that doing science can be fun, not just more work.  The presentation is a way to show experts (we had a couple of PhDs judging) that they learned something and took steps to truly solve an important problem.  This is something that they can be proud of.  The reality of the situation is that you can't convince everyone.  I would rather have a small library full of outstanding projects than a gymnasium full of lowsy ones.  Science can be fun.  It is fun.  Hey, I decided to make a career out of it.  We need to challenge popular culture to convince kids of the same thing.  Easier said than done to be sure.

As a brief aside, judging from the student response to our science fair, I think we will be graduating from the library to a slightly larger venue for RSPS Science Fair 2012.  :-)