Newbie science fair judge

[daijobu]

In a couple of days I'll be judging middle school projects for a local county science fair.  For the first time.  They have posted summaries of each project for me to read in advance.   Before judging I will also receive some training, and my assessments will be diluted by those of other more experienced judges.   

 

Still, I'd like to get a head start so I can do a good job.   Any tips?  What level of quality should I expect from students in middle school?  Should they be expected to cite peer-reviewed sources?  I'm finding that few of them have done any sort of literature search (not that they'd have access to an academic library).  

 

As I read through the project summaries, most of them seem to be at grade level.  And a few seem to be the work of either very precocious students...or they received a bit of ...help.  I don't want to do a disservice to those students who are gifted in science research and can throw around terms like  "Drosophila Startle-induced Response Assay" with aplomb.   Or is this just rewarding students who have highly educated and involved parents?  And is there anything wrong with that?  

 

Thank you for helping me sort this all out in my mind.  I want to be a fair judge.

 

 

[Farrar]

My experience of middle school science fairs is that the academic research portion is considered strongly secondary to doing hands on work where you go through the scientific process. I wouldn't expect most projects to have serious research beyond their background information and explaining their results in context.

 

I'm always hesitant about the whole parent involvement thing. I think kids learn more when the parents are involved - ask questions, encourage, hold the saw sometimes, etc. I think they don't learn much when parents build the whole thing and do the research themselves, obviously. I'm not sure what the guidelines were for this specific project. There's usually not a rule that parents can't interfere at all in any way. But also, I think it's hard to know who did more work, you know? Like, if you have a student in class, then sometimes you know. But when you don't? Some kids are really precocious. I think you have to take it on face value, basically.

[Mandamom]

My small school for kids with reading and language disabilities just had our judged science fair. You can tell the ones where the parents helped but I the discussions that our judges have with each individual student help in selecting the winners. 

 

Scientific method is most important. We don't do any research; some of our students can't read anyway and the discussions are the vital component.

 

Enjoy the day. 

[daijobu]

Sounds like I've been overthinking this.  I'll attend the judge training and do my best to be supportive and encouraging during my interviews.  

[Farrar]

Most kids will have likely gotten their project from something like Science Buddies or from a book of science fair projects.

 

Last year my middle schoolers did science fair projects. One investigated bath bombs. He made three recipes, including one of his own devising, and predicted which would fizz longest. He measured how long they fizzed with a timer. The other did two infusions into pond water to cultivate protozoa. He predicted that they would cultivate different protozoa but about the same number (because that's what his online reading led him to believe). In actuality, the hay infusion cultivated tons while the rice infusion cultivated just a few. While there were a few different things swimming around in there, he didn't see any difference in the types at all.

 

In both cases, having a hypothesis, testing it, and then showing if it was proven or disproven was the key thing. No big research or anything. Back when I was teaching middle school and we held science fairs, there were always a few kids who were super keen on a particular topic that they just couldn't do a proper scientific method experiment process with (like, say, volcanos or falconry or nuclear weapons... all topics I saw science fair projects on at various times). Those kids tend to do research but never win. They're basically side stepping the whole point.

[MerryAtHope]

How fun! Will your students also be doing presentations, and then have a Q & A time with the judge? I think that's where you can really tell whether they know things themselves or if mom/dad took over the project. 

 

Our regional fair sounds a bit different from Farrar's in that there are several categories of projects: models, demonstrations, collections, and science experiments. So in ours, it's not just those that do experiments with hypotheses that can win--a well done model or demonstration with great research papers and presentations can win too. (The best in show this year was actually a 6th grader who did an amazing model of the kidneys and did tons of research, interviewed an expert in dialysis--she really knew her stuff.) Over the years that my dd participated, she won awards doing a variety of models and demonstrations. Three of her six projects were all biology related (one year she made a cell city that models how human cells work--her project that year was so detailed! I also really liked the one she did on the human voice that included both a model and a demonstration.) There can be great opportunities to really learn about a topic a student is interested in and then to figure out how best to explain and display that topic. 

 

I'd probably expect peer-reviewed sources more at the high school level than for junior high. In junior high, I'd expect to see several sources though (not just one or two). Is there any kind of syllabus or rules list for the content of the reports? In our fair, there is a specific format listing the content that needs to be in every report, and also guidelines by age group (for example, keeping a scientific journal in addition to writing a report is optional for grade school but required for 7th & up. High schoolers also have to include an abstract in their report--things like that.) The judges have criteria on how to judge each section. Since you have a training session coming up, I would expect they'll cover some of those types of things though.

 

I hope the fair goes well! That's awesome that you can be a judge--this is such a great thing to provide for kids, what a great opportunity for them!

[daijobu]

It was fun and tiring!  I was impressed with how the other judges took their job seriously, and with well considered views.  The kids were great, and I spent most of my time brainstorming with them how they can add to their experiments when they return next year.