Mar 30, 2021 - 2 min read - 2,666 views

A Digital Science Fair - Stepping away from the tri-fold backboards!

Along with the MANY challenges that teaching in 2020-2021 brought, science teachers around the world had to figure out how to make our beloved (by some) science fair projects work. I am one of those science teachers that LOVES the science fair process and sees the tremendous value that these independent research projects bring to our students. So there was no way I was canceling this "super bowl" of science exploration.

I started the 2020 school year by completely revamping and reformatting our science fair process and making it fully accessible through TEAM's Class Notebook. Following tradition, initially, we were requiring ALL advanced students at our middle school to complete a science fair project, but due to many extreme setbacks, we made it optional within a few weeks. At the end of this 3 month-long process, there were 8 students in our school that decided to keep up and complete their projects, and I was blown away by the quality of their work!  The work these kids did, not even considering the additional challenges they faced, was just phenomenal! I was so proud and had no choice but to figure it out and design a new way for these students to showcase their presentations for virtual judging at a virtual fair. I had never heard of or attempted a completely virtual approach to the science fair before, but this is what I developed.