Science fairs worth it or not?

Science Fairs are they worth it?

There is a lot of controversial about science fairs and if they do in fact help students or not. Now this picture above is a typical picture of what you think of when you think of a science fair. This is what I always thought of as a science fair. I never participated in a science fair because my school did not have science fairs. My school district started to do more science fairs after I was out of the elementary building so my brothers were able to participate in them. I always loved watching them make their project and their poster about their project. I never got to attend one because they were during school hours and I was not allowed to miss class to see one in action. 

There are many different reasons for why science fairs are all the rage and great for students to participate in and compete in. First of all it makes the student think about science and wonder about science. Once the student has a wonder they can use the scientific method to develop it into a project. 

 The Science as Inquiry Standard in NSES includes the abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry and understanding about scientific inquiry. This can be done through a science fair project. It is essential an science inquiry and so it make sense that science fairs would be used for this.

Science fair projects are projects that students have gone through each step in the Scientific method and have thought of a wonder, a question, a hypothesis, an experiment (to determiner if the hypothesis is correct or or not), and lots of research to present to a person. This is not so different from students writing research papers, but it is physical instead of just paper and most students are required to have their data which is all on paper. The data is what backs up the students hypothesis and it is the basis of their project.Science fair projects are a part of the inquiry process. It is a hands on step by step project students do to collect, and analyze data.

Science fairs in elementary schools are for more than just the students who participate in the projects. Science fairs are designed to get other students interested in science and to help spread knowledge. Some students do better with the hands on work over the classroom work so this gives the students a chance to do both, because research is required. The operational stages according to Piaget's theory of Cognitive development influence the types of science fair projects that students should be doing. He says that there are five appropriate projects for elementary students : 1. Demonstrations of practical products. 2. Models of cycles such as the water cycle or the rock cycle. 3. Illustrations of science concepts (magnetism) and how it relates to a phenomena. 4.Collections that display compare variety (insects). 5. Investigations that show changes on a system (plant growth).

I think where the big problems comes in is when students have their parents help them because they are too competitive to lose. These are the science projects that are outside of that five that Piaget's theory suggests. This is where it should be clear that an outside source was involved in the students project.

I read an article that said that "It's hard for them (the kids) to really figure out what is realistically doable, and what projects will give you good hard data, what projects won't make the kids and parents crazy!" (paragraph 4). Parents do have a challenging role in these science fair projects because they want to help their child succeed. This is where the line gets crossed by parents and some will go from guiding and helping their child to doing it for their child and that is where it is believed that Science fair projects become unhelpful to students.

Origins of Science fairs!

Science fairs can be traced back to William Emerson Ritter and Edward W. Scripps. These two men created a  Science Services news service in 1921 to keep the public informed of the latest science advancements. In 1942 with Westinghouse they established The Science Talent Search for high school students a competition to get students to pursue careers in science or engineering. Science Services is still around today,but they are better known as Society for Science and the Public. (The link is live) They have renamed their contest in 1998 to Intel Science Talent Search. About 10 million students from grades k-12 participate in science fairs every year according to ScienceBuddies.org. 

I read some good stuff about science fairs, but I think the best thing for teachers to do is to assign the students a science fair project in steps. Every student will have due dates for each part of the Scientific method that way the teacher can grade that and not the end product that a parent may have been helping with (or doing). This would also help support those students who need a due date and steps to projects. This also gives teachers some assessment of how well the student understand each step of the scientific method, and isn't that the point of the whole thing? 

Science Fair project ideas!

As I am researching about science fairs and their effectiveness I keep coming across pages that give you millions of ideas for science fair projects. I think that this would be helpful to students who are unsure of what to do, but at the same time it has to be overwhelming to look at all these projects and pick one that makes you want to do it. I would like to think that every child has one wonder and that wonder can become a science fair project, but I know that is not always the case. I believe however that these sites are good for students who may need help with the creativity flow. I could also see these sites being good for students who are stuck on their project, either it's not working out like it should or they came to a dead end for suggestions and ideas of how to make it work or to see that it just doesn't work.

Conclusion on Science fair projects.

I think that science fairs are great, but I also think that they should be done in steps with due dates for the students. This not only keeps the students on track but it gives the teacher a better understanding and idea of how well the student understands each concept. I think that doing it this way will help the parents with the overwhelming anxiety of the project it's self. I believe that Science fairs are great ways to have the students really understand the concepts of the scientific method and go through the inquiry process for themselves. Students learn better by doing so why not let the students experiment with their wonders. I think that this is a wonderful thing to do and can be adopted in classrooms in a smaller sense. Students could come up with wonders and try to research them, and this could be used in science stations.

Here is a link to help you plan your Science fair for an elementary class!

Choi, J. (2015). Science fairs aren’t actually preparing your kids to do anything. Retrieved November 22, 2016, from http://qz.com/367007/science-fairs-arent-actually-preparing-your-kids-to-do-anything/