Science Fair Projects Research Articles

Key aspects of successful science fair projects

ABSTRACT Students’ projects are a valuable way to gain experience with real science and motivate them towards a career in science. However, a description of a successful project is missing. To identify the key aspects of successful projects, we analysed biological projects presented in the national round of the Students’ Professional Activities. Particular projects presented in 10 years were evaluated based on, eg, branch of biology, number of authors, cooperation with experts, use of statistics or laboratory versus fieldwork, and county (region of origin within Czechia). Several different variables (eg, statistical analysis or additional work suggestions) pointed to the influential role of the supervisor, under whose guidance projects are more likely to be successful. Additionaly, projects carried out in the laboratory likely ranked better than those carried out in the field. Furthermore, we traced the influence of supportive teachers and show a high influence of the region on projects’ ranking revealing a potential socioeconomic inequity in access to science in Czechia. The trend of doing more biology work in the laboratory is reflected in increasing the percentage of laboratory-based projects over the ten years. We present a summary of how to conduct successful science projects.

High school science fair: School location trends in student participation and experience.

The findings reported in this paper are based on surveys of U.S. high school students who registered and managed their science and engineering fair (SEF) projects through the online Scienteer website over the three years 2019/20, 2020/21, and 2021/22. Almost 2500 students completed surveys after finishing all their SEF competitions. We added a new question in 2019/20 to our on-going surveys asking the students whether their high school location was urban, suburban, or rural. We learned that overall, 74% of students participating in SEFs indicated that they were from suburban schools. Unexpectedly, very few SEF participants, less than 4%, indicated that they were from rural schools, even though national data show that more than 20% of high school students attend rural schools. Consistent with previous findings, Asian and Hispanic students indicated more successful SEF outcomes than Black and White students. However, whereas Asian students had the highest percentage of SEF participants from suburban vs. urban schools- 81% vs. 18%, Hispanic students had the most balanced representation of participants from suburban vs. urban schools- 55% vs. 39%. Differences in students' SEF experiences based on gender and ethnicity showed the same patterns regardless of school location. In the few items where we observed statistically significant (probability < .05) differences based on school location, students from suburban schools were marginally favored by only a few percentage points compared to students from urban schools. In conclusion, based on our surveys results most students participating in SEFs come from suburban schools, but students participating in SEFs and coming from urban schools have equivalent SEF experiences, and very few students participating in SEFs come from rural schools.

ExploreSound.org—An Acoustical Society of America Educator Resource

The Acoustical Society of America Committee on Education in Acoustics (ASA EdCom) developed ExploreSound.org for young people and educators who are interested in learning about sound and the scientists who study sound. This educational website consists of open access material generated by ASA as well as externally created content found to be beneficial to teachers, librarians, professors, and anyone else interested in acoustics education. To effectively communicate the technical content of acoustics and its importance, ExploreSound.org is divided into three main audiences: educators, K-12 students, and university students and acoustics topics can be explored in all technical areas represented in the ASA from Animal Bioacoustics to Underwater Acoustics. Educators and students can freely access and search all games, science fair projects, acoustician profiles, lesson plans, and more. ExploreSound.org supports acoustics education at all levels and in all areas of expertise. All acousticians, professional and student alike, can visit the site to participate in the long tradition of acoustics education.

Past geophysics science fair projects inspire new ideas in a high school STEM setting

During the 2020–2021 school year, a Bartlesville (Oklahoma, USA) High School student engaged in a science, technology, engineering, and math science fair project. It was inspired by a past science fair project published in The Leading Edge in November 2019. The goal of the project is to determine if a 3D seismic survey could be designed to provide even fold in the heart of an ocean-bottom node (OBN) seismic survey for converted waves with sources and receivers at different elevations. Much of the work involves the derivation of a generalized set of equations that predict the required bin size and expected fold for a given 3D OBN seismic survey design. Once the equations are established, a set of seismic survey design tests are conducted to determine if the equations are valid.

Tennessee Academy of Science Executive Committee Meeting Minutes, May 2020

Tennessee Academy of Science Executive Committee Meeting Minutes, May 2020

Expanding STEM Membership: Using Science Process Skills in a Social Justice Curriculum to Combat Stereotype Threats and Build Self-Efficacy in African American Students

10.5590/JERAP.2021.11.1.18Science process skills were scaffolded throughout instruction over the ten-week program. The culminating project included the development, design, and testing of their own independent science fair project. The results reflect an increase in students’ self-efficacy which was evidenced by the students’ preparation and presentation of their projects in the science fair.

Expanding STEM Membership: Using Science Process Skills in a Social Justice Curriculum to Combat Stereotype Threats and Build Self-Efficacy in African American Students

Science process skills were scaffolded throughout instruction over the ten-week program. The culminating project included the development, design, and testing of their own independent science fair project. The results reflect an increase in students’ self-efficacy which was evidenced by the students’ preparation and presentation of their projects in the science fair.

There are a lot of steps and sometimes you have to start all over: Independent science fair projects and science and engineering practices

There are a lot of steps and sometimes you have to start all over: Independent science fair projects and science and engineering practices

Experiences of Turkish Middle School Science Teachers’ First Science Fair Projects Coordination

This study aimed to reveal the experiences of science teachers conducting a science fair project for the first time. The research used quantitative data based on an online assessment survey for science fair projects. There are twenty-one questions (one of them is open-ended, the others are Likert type) developed by the researcher. The questionnaire was shared with science teachers on the science fair, 4006 science fairs, Tübitak science fairs themed social media pages between June and October 2018. 244 coordinator science teachers marked the survey. The data obtained from the questionnaire was presented in a tabular form by deducting % and frequencies. On the other hand, the last open-ended questions were analyzed by using content analysis. Based on these results, science teachers, who carried out the fair coordinator for the first time and to be able to do it again have some expectations of practicing positive experiences such as the students should gain scientific skills, the fair should be carried out in cooperation, the responsibilities were shared in a balanced way in the school, the school administrators should both support and help the process, the advisors should take ownership of the job, be appreciated by stakeholders with awards, etc. However, this first experience posed a sufficiently unexpected result at least for some of them.

Jeannine Cavender-Bares.

Jeannine Cavender-Bares.

A high school student's introduction to geophysics through acquisition, processing, and interpretation of GPR data from marked and unmarked grave sites

During the 2019–2020 school year, a high school student engaged in a science fair project that involved acquiring, processing, and interpreting geophysical data. The project used ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to identify response signatures of marked and unmarked grave sites in Fairlawn Cemetery in Stillwater, Oklahoma. During the investigation, the student was introduced to GPR acquisition equipment, seismic processing algorithms, and interpretation techniques. With the help of local university outreach and community mentors, the student was able to complete the science fair project with a positive outcome.

Parental Helping with Science Fair Projects: a Case Study

Considering the number of students who participate in them each year, science fairs are an under-researched area of science education. As part of a broader research agenda examining and conceptualizing science fairs, in this study we interviewed parents who had children who had participated in science fairs and were now in university. Parents discussed their role in working with their children, what understandings of science were held and were developed through these activities, and how they perceived the overall science fair experience that their child (or children) had. Using three representative cases, from a phenomenological perspective, we describe assistance ranging from providing some technical support and encouragement to a parent who hired graphic designers to create the poster for the science fair. Implications of these interviews may be useful for schools and science fair organizers/judges.

Backtalk: Engineering fairer science fairs

Students who come from wealthy families and schools often have an advantage when it comes to science fairs. Parents with the time and resources to do so often get involved in every stage of the science fair project, enabling their students to create projects that are far beyond what they could achieve on their own. Todd L. Pittinsky suggests adding constraints by requiring students to develop projects based on a small list of items. Such constraints would not only spark student creativity, they would help level the playing field.

High school science fair: Positive and negative outcomes.

The goal of our ongoing research is to identify strengths and weaknesses of high school level science fair and improvements that can help science educators make science fair a more effective, inclusive and equitable learning experience. In this paper, we confirm and extend our previous findings in several important ways. We added new questions to our anonymous and voluntary surveys to learn the extent to which students had an interest in science or engineering careers and if science fair participation increased their interest in science or engineering. And we surveyed a national rather than regional high school student group by incorporating our survey into the Scienteer online portal now used by Texas and some other states for science fair registration, parental consent, and project management. We learned that about ~60% of the more than 300 students in the national cohorts completing surveys in 2017 and 2018 said that they were interested in a career in science or engineering, and ~60% said that participating in science fair increased their interest in science or engineering. About two-thirds of the students were required to participate in science fair, and that requirement reduced the frequency of students who said that science fair increased their interest. In the worst case, ~10% of the students who said that they were not interested in a career in science or engineering and who were required to participate in science fair engaged in research misconduct (i.e., plagiarism and making up their results). Students’ positive comments about competition in science fair focused on the competition incentive, whereas their positive comments about science fair that was non-competitive focused on learning about the scientific process and learning in general. We discuss the findings in the context of National Science Teaching Association guidance about voluntary science fair participation and begin to identify features of science fair practice consistent with increased student interest in the sciences or engineering.

Science Fair Was One of the Highlights of My Middle School Life: Using Science Fair to Develop NGSS Practices

This article illustrates how a seventh-grade life science unit connects to the Science and Engineering Practices and Nature of Science in the Next Generation Science Standards and used science fair projects as a context for students to solve problems and understand how authentic science is done. We outline how student interests drive the development and presentation of science fair projects and discuss each component of a science fair project to reflect the practices and nature of science and how we support students along the way. The article includes images of students and of their work for science fair projects.

Geophysics in the high school STEM setting

In 2014, Bartlesville High School in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, USA, started an advanced math applications class as part of its new science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) program. Selected exploration geophysics topics were incorporated as part of the class. Four of the class students in the 2017–2018 school year completed independent study of various topics in seismic acquisition design for science fair projects. The contents of this paper are the findings of those science fair projects. Contents include generating evenly distributed fold for compressional wave surveys (P-P), evenly distributed fold for converted-wave surveys (P-S), evenly distributed fold for ocean-bottom-cable/seismometer surveys (P-P), and offset/depth relations for validity of using the asymptotic approximation for converted-wave surveys (P-S).

How an energy drink affects planarians: a high school investigation

Many students consume energy drinks without knowing or thinking about the adverse side effects. The purpose of this article is to share student procedures and results after testing the effects of a popular energy drink, Red Bull, on Dugesia Dorotocephala planarians (flatworms). Planarians are animals with neurotransmitters systems that are similar to mammals and teachers can use these flatworms in the classroom to teach students about the harmful effects of drug use. In this article, we discuss how a teacher uses the 5E model to assist 9–12 grade high school student participants of the Science Education Against Drug Abuse Program (SEADAP) with the design and development of their science fair project. This article also focuses on how there are statistically significant differences in planarian motility, stereotypy, and time spent in the light after conditioned place preference in Red Bull and its active chemical ingredients.

The Making of a Speech Scientist

You have accessThe ASHA LeaderFirst Person on the Last Page1 Nov 2018The Making of a Speech ScientistIntrigued by an apraxia study, a 13-year-old seeks a researcher’s help for a middle school science fair project. Kathy J. JakielskiPhD, CCC-SLP Kathy J. Jakielski Google Scholar More articles by this author , PhD, CCC-SLP https://doi.org/10.1044/leader.FPLP.23112018.72 SectionsAbout ToolsAdd to favorites ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In Among the deluge of daily emails that arrived in my inbox one fall day, I saw one with a unique subject line: “Speech Disorder Science Fair Question From a Fan.” Well, I’d never received an email from a fan before, so I immediately clicked it open. I was introduced to an eighth-grade student from Philadelphia. She described reading about my pilot study investigating subclinical speech characteristics in teens with resolved speech sound disorders. The study was summarized in “Anything But Silent,” a book written by a family with two children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). The student had read the book because her younger brother has severe CAS. She said she’d become intrigued by speech production and the study I’d conducted when learning more about her brother’s disorder. She ended the email asking if I might help her come up with an idea for a study she could carry out for her middle school science fair, five weeks away. She signed the email, “Your fan, Maya Jennings.” How could I say anything but yes? Given Maya’s tight timeline—and the 1,000 miles between our homes—we held an initial brainstorming session via conference call. As we pitched and discussed study ideas, I was impressed by Maya’s seriousness and capability. We developed a study in which Maya would investigate speech sound errors exhibited by young adults during complex speech tasks. We established a set of weekly research tasks Maya needed to complete to finish on time. We also identified participants with typical speech at the time of Maya’s study, but with two of them having received speech sound intervention as children. I initially considered mentoring Maya merely because of her pluckiness, but I quickly recognized that I could also foster her scientific curiosity in speech science. Over the five weeks, Maya and I exchanged about 70 emails and had two additional conference calls. She completed her study, discovering that only some of the participants’ speech errors could be explained by the nature of their early speech diagnoses, thus only partially supporting her hypotheses and teaching her about her intricacies of speech production. Maya prepared her science fair display with impressive independence. The benefits of collaborating with Maya were both professional and personal. I became energized by her scientific inquisitiveness, which took me back to my own initial interest in the work that I do. Nurturing a teen in the science of our discipline also gave me great joy, especially because I knew that this work provided Maya insight into a disorder that affects her and her family daily. It does not take a PhD to mentor a curious young mind. The education and training we receive as audiologists and speech-language pathologists are steeped in scientific method and inquiry. We can nurture a young scientist’s interest in the speech, language and hearing sciences by providing a modest investment of time, expert advice and thoughtful encouragement. If a Maya does not reach out to you first, then I encourage you to seek out a young mind to mentor! Author Notes Kathy J. Jakielski, PhD, CCC-SLP, is the Florence C. and Dr. John E. Wertz Chair in Liberal Arts and Sciences at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, where she serves as professor and chair of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. She is an affiliate of ASHA Special Interest Groups 10, Issues in Higher Education, and 17, Global Issues in Communication Sciences and Related Disorders. [email protected] Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Additional Resources FiguresSourcesRelatedDetails Volume 23Issue 11November 2018 Get Permissions Add to your Mendeley library History Published in print: Nov 1, 2018 Metrics Current downloads: 227 Topicsasha-topicsleader_do_tagasha-article-typesleader-topicsCopyright & Permissions© 2018 American Speech-Language-Hearing AssociationLoading ...

Authentic science with citizen science and student‐driven science fair projects

AbstractThis study reports on the process and development of middle school science fair projects inspired by a summer science program of citizen science monitoring (Monarch Larvae Monitoring Project) with their classroom teacher. We gathered and analyzed qualitative data (interviews, focus groups, and project boards). Our analysis revealed three key findings: (1) the process of developing and completing a student‐driven investigation for a science fair engages students in the scientific practices envisioned by the Next Generation Science Standards, (2) citizen science served as a springboard for the development of authentic participation in science, and (3) there are dual roles of a teacher as both mentor and master. Our findings have important implications for science education and student science fairs.

The Study of Animal Behavior Provides Valuable Opportunities for Original Science Fair Projects: Recommendations from The Animal Behavior Society, Education Committee

The study of Animal Behavior is critically important in understanding our living world and is a major program within the NSF. For students, animal behavior projects offer the opportunity to explore original questions in a scientifically rigorous manner. However, animal behavior projects are under-represented in science fairs and are often discouraged by teachers and judges. We give a sample of the types of questions that students could explore and we suggest appropriate judging criteria.