Science Fair Resources and Checklists

Interested in running a science fair at your school but don't know where to start? Look no further! This post contains everything you need to have your science fair dialed including resources, handouts, rubrics, labels, and advice. 

Resources

• The Science Fair Foundation has many useful resources for teachers including a guide that can be handed out to students, topic ideas, rubrics, and more.
  
  
• The regional science fair in your area will also be able to provide you with information and resources for science fair projects. In my area, this is the West Kootenay Regional Science Fair (WKRSF)
  
  
• If you are doing science fair projects with students grade 7-9, my notes on the scientific method are useful to teach alongside science fair project work.
  
  
• How to Run a Successful Science Fair
  
  
• My Google Drive resources
  
  
• 100 Science Fair Project Ideas

Types of Science Fair Projects

Not all science fair projects need to have an experiment or demonstration. Your regional science fair will likely have several categories for projects. The WKRSF has categories of:

1. Experiment - a project that requires an experiment to be conducted in order to obtain new information.
   
   
2. Innovation - a project that focuses on inventing something new or making significant improvements to a pre-existing product.
   
   
3. Study - a project based on only research. 

Outline from The Science Fair Foundation's Guide

Teaching

1. Introduce the topic of a science fair project to the class:
• ask if they have ever done one before and allow students to share any previous experiences with the class
• ask students what the scientific method is and what they remember about it
• my free scientific method activity could be a fun way to start out the class
  
  
2. Hand out resources for students to use as a reference:
• I recommend The Science Fair Foundation Guide and a brief one-page handout for easy reference
  
  
3. Show examples of good science fair projects:
• I usually keep a few of the best ones from the previous year to show to the class- ask students what they notice about the projects and what they think makes it a good project
• Exemplar (grade 12 level)
  
  
4. Go through an overview of the criteria for the project:
• show all the sections a project will need to have (shown above)
• The science fair guide goes through each of these sections in detail
  
  
5. Discuss how to come up with ideas for a science fair project:
• This is objectively the hardest part. In my experience, students want to choose simple experiments like "putting Mentos in Diet Coke", but this doesn't teach us anything new. We already know the outcome of putting Mentos in Diet Coke. Every project needs to have a question and a hypothesis. So, a better way to go about a project of this nature would be to ask a more detailed question, such as "Which brand of pop creates the bigger reaction?" and/or "Does diet pop or regular pop create a larger reaction?". This will require students to come up with methods to measure the amount of reaction occurring. 
• I recommend requiring approval for all science fair project ideas so students can't choose overly simple topics
  
  
6. Go through the schedule with the class
• you should time your school science fair to happen before the regional science fair takes place, making it easy for students to continue on to the regional science fair if they are interested. 
• A detailed timeline of events is listed below.
  
  
7. Teach students how to ask good questions and do sufficient background research
• This is something students really struggle with, and is beyond the scope of this post. I am planning on developing more resources surrounding this in the future. 
  
  
8. Go through rubric with the class

Schedule

I recommend beginning science fair project work at least 2 months before you plan on having your fair. Within that time frame, you should have several check-ins to keep students on track.

Check-in 1: Students should have decided on an idea (as well as the category this idea fits into) and had it approved by the teacher. This check-in should come fairly quickly after the project was introduced (1-3 classes).

 
Check-in 2: Students should have done their background research and begun their experiment. Students should be mindful of how long the experiment will take to conduct. For example, a project that requires growing plants will need to be started earlier than an experiment that can be done in 1 afternoon. This check-in should come around 2 weeks after the first.

Check-in 3: Experiments should be finished and students should be working on tabulating their data, writing their discussions, and drawing conclusions. This check-in should come around 2 weeks after the second.

Final check-in: Students should be finished the writing parts of the project and in the process of setting up their board. This check-in should come around 1 week after the third.

Day before the fair: Projects should be complete and at the school. This should happen about a week after the final check-in.

For best results, email parents letting them know their student's progress at each of these check-ins. That way if they are behind the parent can support them outside of class time.

Checklists

To do in advance:

• Order poster boards - we usually order some for the school and then students can pay the office for one. I recommend this because then the school can provide students with financial hardship with a board for free, students can't use the excuse of "not being able to find one", and most students will have the correct dimension of board. 
  
  
• Give students information about continuing on to a regional level so that they can consider it as they progress through their project
  
  
• Book a space for the fair - any open room in your school works (library, gym, etc.)
  
  
• Invite people - other classes, parents, and community members - this works best if you stagger the times by 15 minutes (ex: invite one class for 10:00am, next class for 10:15am, parents for 10:30am, community members for 10:45am, etc)
  
  
• Go to local businesses and ask for donations for prizes
  
  
• Obtain or make ribbons or certificates for science fair winners (I usually do 1st, 2nd, 3rd for each grade)
  
  
• Organize a voting system (I talk about this in more detail in my article on How to Run a Successful Science Fair)
  
  
• Check-in with your student's parents to make sure the project is following the schedule

To do the day before: 

• Go over expectations with students (should be by their board at all times, should explain their project and answer questions when people approach their board, etc)
  
  
• Have students practice explaining their project to classmates
  
  
• Organize the tables in the science fair space so that it's easy to set the projects up the day of the fair

• Print off labels to identify each project with grade level (for voters to see)

Continuing to a Regional Level

At a school level, I don't require students to write a report along with their project, but students will need to do this to qualify for regional. You may choose to include this piece of criteria at your school-level science fair as this will make the transition smoother for anyone wanting to continue on. 

When a student says they are interested in participating in the regional science fair, generally they need to be signed up for it. You should help the student do this and then pass all accompanying information (this will be provided on your local regional fair's website) to both the student and their parents.

As we move up in grades, the participants in the regional science fair in my area seem to get a lot more sparse, so I always encourage high school students to continue on a little extra! 

I hope this guide gives you everything you need to conduct a successful science fair. If you have any questions, I am happy to answer them in the comments!