The science fair is one of the biggest projects students take on during their science classes, and it is finally wrapping up. In this important project, students are required to create and perform an experiment, then put their results on a tri-fold board to show to the class. Students go through a long process, with steps including proposing a project, buying the materials, conducting the experiment, and making a board to convey the information. Many students are relieved to be at the end of the project. Science fair is announced at the beginning of the year, and spans until January, before the end of the second quarter. Students describe it as “time-consuming” and “stressful.”
The class fair is not the final step. Selected teams can go to the school fair, and if they win, can progress to the county, national, then international levels.
Freshman Kass Harmon says that science fair was “kinda boring” but said it was cool seeing the other boards in her class. Harmon and her group “ended up procrastinating and got assignments last minute” which added stress for them. Despite this, she believes the students did get enough time to complete the project. “Even though we procrastinated we still had enough time to do it,” she says. She thinks her end result was pretty good but could have been better had they not procrastinated.
Freshmen Emma Ayres, Charlotte Arehart, and Naomi Skoy were selected as one of the projects in their class to go to the school fair. Their project was on the different types of felt on the different amounts of sound able to get through them. “The project was very stressful, and it was hard to figure out when to work with different people,” Ayres says. She also feels the time given is enough to work on the project. Ayres is excited to go to the school fair as it was a personal goal for her and is “excited to share her project.”
A survey was sent out to 10 students doing science fair. 100% of the respondents agreed that science fair was stressful, out of which 80% of the students worked in a group. 80% of the respondents said they felt like they had enough time to do science fair, and the rest said there was too little time.
