I looked at a couple of different county sites, our county starts at 4th grade, the 'fancier' nearby county starts at middle school. It is optional for children in elementary, I am not sure about higher up.
Otgm, like your ds6, my ds9 has been waiting for this since 1st grade, lol!~ not entirely sure the best way to start, other than have ds look at science fair project books and get the requirements/rules when they are put out. I thought they'd be available year-round to peruse, but so far have not located them. (yours may already be available!) I think they issue the rules/date in Dec. or so, and then the fair is a couple months later. I actually thought a few years ago they required kids to do a paper airplane project, because the only year we've gone to see it, most were 'what makes the best paper airplane'. A cool project, but less so after you've seen 20 of them...
