It’s January and it’s Science Fair season. The keywords, “science fair projects,” “easy science fair ideas,” and “science fair help” are some of the top searched terms on Google in the month of January as students and their parents get online to look for help on their science fair projects.
Participating in the school science fair is a fantastic opportunity to learn about the scientific method, ask new questions, discover new science facts, conduct experiments and gain a new understanding of how science works. It also builds self confidence and public speaking skills.
My favorite part of the science fair is the bright smiles and prideful faces of the students who participate. In my daughter’s school, participating in the science fair is strictly extra-curricular. I am always so proud of each and every student who dedicates the time and
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Our blog editor (and my favorite contributor), Susan Wells, recently wrote an article about kindergarteners being banned from science fairs. Susan does a great job of reporting on science happenings that truly stike a nerve. In response to many of your comments, Susan asked if I would share an overview of a long-term research project that I’m working on with students, parents and teachers at one of our elementary school partners, Laura Ingalls Wilder Elementary in Littleton, Colorado. Grab a new cup of coffee and take a look…
Science Fair Boot Camp
Think about a real Boot Camp . . . intense training for a condensed period of time. The leader motivates, teaches, directs, trains, and models the behaviors or actions desired for the young recruits. Those young recruits learn discipline, critical thinking, planning, strategy, and organization. They also learn from their mistakes and work together to find solutions. Boot Camp is preparation for the “real deal.”
Now think about how this Boot Camp metaphor might be applied to science and elementary school “recruits.” At Wilder Elementary School in Littleton, Colorado, we started a Science Fair Boot Camp training …
The goal of the science fair is to teach the scientific method and give students insight into how to theorize, set up, perform and draw conclusions from an experiment. But it’s so much more than just boring science steps. It gets kids excited about independent learning, reaching, researching and discovering. This isn’t something you read about in a text book, it’s something you create, build and find your own answers. Creativity also helps in building a science fair project board – they are works of art!
Students also learn public speaking skills during the fair when presenting their project and discussing it with fair visitors.
And through all of this hard work, speaking, creating, testing and concluding, the kids build self-confidence and pride in their work. My favorite part of the science fair is walking around and seeing the pride and joy on all of the kids’ faces. Now, how can that be dreaded?
