So it's getting to be science fair season in our district and I assume elsewhere. Are other folk's kids participating and if so I'm curious what types of projects they are doing and how kid directed the process is for them.

We are not doing a science fair project this year, mainly because we have rather low-competition children, who prefer doing little unstructured projects year-round, but we have done so in the past. Ours have been almost entirely kid-directed, except for harassing them to do work, once they've committed to doing a project. We will answer questions, and direct them to resources upon request, including driving them to various stores to purchase supplies (but nothing really expensive, unless one of the parents has an ulterior motive in purchasing it for parental use!). (Before they could type fluently, I did type up any accompanying research papers for them.)

I run the science fair at DDs alternative school. DD has a long-standing interest from her earliest experience in elementary and that's how I ended up volunteering to run it. I do not judge -- since DD is a participant -- however I do define judging criteria and make sure that "kid doing stuff themselves" is weighed heavily.

Here's a (nostalgic and somewhat self-indulgent) look at her past projects and participation levels:

1st grade -- Are planets closer to the sun hotter? We helped come up with the hypothesis (based on her wanting to do something with the planets) and collaborated on the experimental model (lightbulb and glasses of water). She did the setup and measurements, but we helped with the graphing and board. Of course her conclusion was wrong and the reason easily researched (it's the atmosphere!).

2nd grade -- Does temperature affect crystal growth rate? This was an easy one for her to do, though we helped with the boiling water. We also helped her research the actual science behind her results. For this one we did very little on the presentation.

3rd grade -- Is your cellphone dirtier than your toilet? We helped her cook up the agar, but she did the swabbing. We helped her find a warm place to incubate. We also worked with her to figure out how to judge the results under the microscope (counting germ cultures is not as easy as Mythbusters makes it look!). She did the board herself. Results -- NO, thank goodness!

Following years (as a homeschooler):

Does the kind of light affect the growth of plants? She handled most of this, except for sourcing the lights. Result: maybe, but the sample size was too small.

Is global warming real? I had to hunt down a high end CO2 meter, but she did most of the rest. Result: hard to control CO2 level, but it sure seemed to affect temperature in a closed system.

I'm not sure what she'll do this year.

Hate science fair with a passion. Yes younger son did one. I say do that at school if you want it done....I don't care if you don't have time for it...my time is precious too.

How come you hate it? Not judging, but just curious.

I feel the same way about classroom parties that require volunteers, by the way. I have so many better things to do.

I am on the fence about science projects. My kids were only required to do a science project in 6th grade, other than that it was optional. My son's 6th grade one wasn't altogether successful and he didn't want to try again. Partly because he choose a topic that was hard to define and thus hard to test and get real results. I think they can be interesting and fun for some kinds of kids. My problem with them is this type of project requires so much parental help.

But the science project I HATED was in 8th grade. (It was just a class project) My son's 8th grade science teacher (whom I disliked) decided her students should do a YEAR LONG science project. I kid you not. Once a month one small part of the project was due. She figured that this would be easier on the kids and parents. What it did instead for my son was made a project that given 2-3 weeks he would have had fun with into something torturous. I have no idea who she thought this schedule would be better for.

I had at least the presence of mind to realized it was only a minor part of the grade and to have him choose something very straightforward. (He studied pendulums) But he got bad grades because he was constantly forgetting that that months assignments was due, it wasn't always the same date. He did most of the work on the project one evening in March, but the paper on the project wasn't due till June. He did get an A on the paper he turned in, but because he missed so many of the early deadlines. This was more an assignment on his classroom listening skills, and long term project management than learning any science.

My idea of a sound science fair program was done at a Catholic school in my area. (And they clearly sweep the awards at district, regionals and state fairs).

Third grade....each third teacher runs several science fair projects with the class as class wide projects. Small groups are in charge of creating the presentation board and explaining to judges. Teacher works through the scientific method step by step. So the class might do four or five projects very guided by the teacher.

Fourth grade...small groups do projects from beginning to end in class with teacher helping from topic, question, design and execution of experiment. Time is given each day and teacher circulates helping each group. Presentation boards made in class.

Fifth grade same as fourth only students can work alone or in pairs. Less direction, but approval is needed at the beginning stages..lots of support as needed.

Middle school science fair is actually part of the elective wheel. So the first nine weeks a group has science fair as their elective and under the direction of a gifted science instructor (and based on the foundation created in elementary school) they research, submit questions and hypothesis and design...the get consultations to refine everything so they are really testing what they say they are. Second nine weeks the second group has a turn. Then they move on to another elective like art or computers or whatever.

To me that is how you run science fair.

Not "do a science experiment". "Here is the rubric". That does not constitute teaching. His question should have been approved (his was stupid), his experimental design should have been approved and his teacher should have actually taught him something...feedback does and he won't get any until tomorrow on the presentation he made Thursday. AND I have better things to do on a weekend...AND the only board staples had was $20.00 for a dang 5th grade project. sTUPID and HATE aren't strong enough for me.

And it isn't like he is actually curing cancer or discovering gravity.

We measured vitamin C in fruits for a project. This year started off with a project about whether the same food in different colors is perceived as a different flavor but, well, the whole testing on people thing didn't work out (not enough people) and was too indefinite for the fair.
Science fair is required for middle school 'challenge' science (read: extra projects) and oh, the conundrums:
Do we do something interesting but hard?
Something easy we know the answer to?
Something we're interested in, but doesn't follow the rubric to the letter?
What if we're making it too complicated? (We are.)
Is it wrong to do an easy projects? Do we play the game or not?
What are they LOOKING for anyway?
And on and on and ON....:'(
Actually, this is how we do every project, ugh.
And how does one dispose of iodine?

DD did an acid-rain and geology project when she was in 7th. It wasn't for "science fair" it was one of these stupid "work sample" things that our state (at the time) thought that all students needed to do.

So DD did all of it.

I approved her experimental design, but it involved pH measurements, volume measurements, dilutions of vinegar, mass measurements, LOTS of different kinds of rocks/stone samples, and about half a million plastic gladware containers.

She did a great job, though, and the project write up was eventually deemed "exemplary" for the 11th grade level and she was told she didn't have to do another one for high school. {shrug}

I used to judge regional science fair projects. Personally, I really like the students who understand their own experimental design and have done it well. The project's sophistication is almost irrelevant in the face of that. But that is me.

Cookie and master_of_none, all I can say is no wonder you hate it! Those sound like horrible ways to run a science fair!

Maybe we were just spoiled. After 1st, DD went to a math and science magnet that required a project from each student each year in each grade starting in, I think 1st. So from grade 1 through 8, everyone did a project. And there was this whole course section on it. One week asking a compelling question. One week on the hypothesis. Etc.

They'd recruit parent volunteers with a STEM background. We went through training and judged the grades our kids weren't in. And the best projects in grades 6-8 were entered in the regional fair.

I used that structure and material to help create the fair at her current school. Right down to the 10 steps to creating a science fair project (though I rewrote the handouts).

I guess it never occurred to me that schools could mess that up, based as it is on the science fair system.

Yes to that! I like to see students who obviously created their own boards. Who screwed up the experiment and CAN TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED. Who are excited about what they discovered, even if what they discovered was only new to them.

But this is the rub. Sometimes the most interesting experiments are the messiest. They don't fit into neat little boxes, but explore areas of passion and interest.

Her "at home only" project with the mice was the most interesting, but it sure was messy (literally and figuratively). The sample size was too small and her experimental model wasn't working, so she ended up trying like three different things. But it was cool and a lot of fun. And we all found the results very interesting. For example, she couldn't prove that food color affected mouse intellect or memorization (the original goal). But she did discover that it affected activity level, weight, and odor.

Right now socially aware experiments seem to be in vogue... ones with a TEDx vibe, if you know what I mean.

One of my pet peeves with science fairs is that they often confound experimental science with engineering projects--often to the disadvantage of both. I've seen some pretty cool engineering projects not recognized at all in science fair judging because there was no space for anything without a classically-testable hypothesis and repeated measures (I am, I should note, all for the empirical method and reproducibility). If you build a fabulous robot, you should get some credit for it, even if you can't easily make a graph or table with at least three trials for each condition. I think science fairs should have a science and an engineering category, judged separately. I've never seen this below the high school level.

And I agree, I like to see a project that exhibits the student's understanding of the scientific method.

DD is very interested in field biology, so she was all excited about science fair (next year)--till we learned that it is virtually impossible to get approval of any project involving live organisms, even just observation in the field. If that is incorrect, please let me know, but this is what we have been told.

You'll have to look at the specifics, UM-- some policies have a mechanism for seeking subject approvals, and some (unfortunately) lack all such mechanisms, so it's functionally impossible to even do observational field work with those more rigid policies. Sometimes there is a loophole built in for observational studies-- read the fine print.

You can sometimes get around the animal subject prohibition if you can find a way to piggyback on an institutional approval for animal/human subjects (e.g. IRB) that is already in existence, or starting for another purpose such as a grant/pilot study. To do that you have to know someone who is willing to underwrite the project on their approval, though-- university or research department, usually. It never hurts to ask if you happen to find someone in that position with similar research interests, though.

The real problem with those kinds of prohibitions is that taken to extremes, they mean that even polling classmates for the purposes of doing statistical analyses can be considered under the constraints of involving "human subjects." Which is ridiculous, of course, if you're asking for volunteers to run through a red/green colorblindness test or something, IMO, but there it is-- apparently the process of asking someone a few questions after they look at neutral images is potentially scarring to one's peers.


I'm also pretty sure that birdwatching is not bothering the birds in question if you're doing it through binoculars, too, but even that can be off-limits under the most strict policies. The Cornell lab, though-- that has an approval, and you might be able to get some wiggle room by going through that channel. I don't know that, but it probably can't hurt to ask.

Yes my older son did a project one year that won his class and the school but didn't go to district because he used a human subject (not to mention that his n was one, so the number of subjects was too small). But everyone liked the project. (He was studying neumonics and memory). Could have scarred that girl for life....but where was the teacher? ....nope handed out the assignment and rubric and was done with it...didn't catch the human subject and didn't catch the group was too small.


The next year he studied hamburger meat and how much fat and water cooks out of the different grades of burger. And if you pay less per pound for a fattier meat if you end up with the same cost per pound once cooked as the leaner meat.

We couldn't poll on taste because humans and would muddy the actual question. And what is funny is he doesn't eat meat.

Yes, we have lots of connections to faculty, etc doing approved research, so she might be able to get around it that way. But then she's piggybacking, not doing her own thing, And yes, we have been told that even observational study of birds through binocs would be a huge hassle. But I'll want to confirm that.

According to the Intel ISEF:

"9. Before experimentation begins, a local or regional Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Scientific Review Committee (SRC) associated with the Intel ISEF-affiliated fair must review and approve most projects involving human participants, vertebrate animals, and potentially hazardous biological agents.

10. Every student must complete the Student Checklist (1A), a Research Plan and Approval Form (1B) and review the project with the Adult Sponsor in coordination with completion by the Adult Sponsor of the Checklist for Adult Sponsor (1).

11. A Qualified Scientist is required for all studies involving BSL-2 potentially hazardous biological agents and DEA-controlled substances and is also required for many human participant studies and many vertebrate animal studies."

So at the regional level, there are provisions for approving all kinds of experiments.

HOWEVER, schools often take the path of least resistance and blanket forbid anything difficult or possibly controversial.

My local school district requires special approval if for use of humans or animals. And if you "question" other students as your test subjects you must get their parental approval. It believe it's just the students science teacher who approves these applications. They don't allow anything that would harm the animal, and err on the side of rejecting it if it could at all hurt the animal.

I have seen approvals for projects that include observations of birds in the wild, behavior of dogs, behavior of people. My son did his 6th grade science project testing hearing.

As for other live organisms. I don't think there is a prohibition, but I do know my kid's science teachers discouraged projects that involved growing plants partly because of time constraints. And partly their past experience with students projects that failed to grow at all.