Science fair is such a fun and engaging way to teach kids about the scientific process and using science to answer questions.
Being in charge of planning and running a school science fair each year, I put together a seamless system to make it run smoothly and be an exciting event for the community.
In addition to involving students and their families, you can reach out to community members to judge the science fair for you!
Science Fair Made Easy
To really make the science fair run smoothly, you will want a project/experiment guide to wall students through each step of planning and executing their project. I use a step-by-step student log book to make this a low stress learning experience for the kids, and myself.
Picking an Idea
The hardest part of science fair, for me, is coming up with a good idea to test and display for this exciting event!
You will want something that students can actually test.
The top two google responses when I looked up science fair ideas is: erupting volcano and skittle rainbow. But…
Yes, the volcanoes exploding are the picture perfect, exciting science fair project. But, what scientific hypothesis are you actually testing? A better idea would be: How does peroxide strength affect the volcanic eruption?
Skittles rainbow is cute, but what science are you actually testing? Think of ways to add a hypothesis such as: Which type of liquid makes the rainbow appear fastest?
Here are a few more ideas to get you and your students thinking:
How does the type of light or size of light affect shadows?
How does the weather affect shadows? Observe a shadow in the same place at the same time on days with varying cloud coverage.
Which soil type is the best for growing flowers?
Does music affect the growth of plants?
Which paper towel brand soaks up the most liquid?
Which angle of cutting a rose makes it last the longest in a vase of water?
Does the presence of earth worms affect the growth of plants?
How do different beverages affect the growth of plants? Test: water, sports drink with electrolytes, soda, juice.
What brand of bubble gum has the biggest bubble size?
How does the amount of light affect the time it takes bananas turning brown?
What’s the best way to store bananas to keep them from turning brown? (bundled or separated, pantry or counter…)
Or pick any project or experiment from your science lesson sets! That’s an easy place to grab a good, problem-solving, hypothesis based science experiment!
Here are some resources to help make your science fair fun and easy!
Science Fair Log Books for individual or classroom. This guides you through each step of planning and testing your science fair project idea.
Some teachers like to have a class project plus individual projects:
This science fair log book is designed for teachers to walk their class through a demonstration science fair project and then have students use that example to develop and test their own science fair project. Each page of the log has a “We do” section and an “I do” section. It also has a digital version included!
I hope this helps make this big project seem a little easier for you! And, don’t forget that each of my lesson sets usually has at least 1 experiment and one project depending on the topic! So, you can easily grab the idea, instructions, and lab pages right there! No only is that less work for you, but you can incorporate it into your scheduled lesson and not miss any teach time!