Science fairs are often a part of a student's scientific learning career. From my own experience, I was required to participate in a science fair every year of middle school. Generally, students had free range of what their project was on, as long as it related in some way to whatever science course we were involved in at the time. Involved in these projects was not only a poster board with our findings, but a research paper submitted to our teacher. While stressful at the time, the end product was always something I was very proud of. Now that I am learning about teaching science, and discovering how to engage students in their own learning as well as ensure students gain as much knowledge as they can, I see how important and beneficial science fairs can be for students.
The picture above is generally what was involved in the creation of a poster for our science fair experiment, and what other students, parents, and teachers would see during the fair. The research paper I had been required to write as a student in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade did not have to be attached to the poster, because the paper was a summation of our results and research done to support the hypothesis we made as well as our results. This research paper was the first exposure I had to needing to both utilize sources as well as determine which sources were considered credible. The sources I was allowed to use in middle school obviously would not necessarily be considered credible at a college level, but the process of researching made me question what I was reading and whether or not it was something I felt could be used. Performing the experiment and creating the poster was the enjoyable part of the process. The experiment allowed me to answer my own question I had about a subject, which I realize now is part of the inquiry process. Because I was the one who came up with the experiment I wanted to perform, I was constantly interested in what the results were going to be. For one project, I designed an experiment which allowed me to discover which plant food would allow for the most growth over the course of a few weeks: organic or chemical plant food. This was a topic I had heard debated over at family parties and was interested to see which of my competitive uncles was correct in claiming their garden was better than the others. In being required to use scientific language like hypothesis, independent and dependent variable, control, and so on, I was able to fully grasp the concept of these words and how they were to be used in a science experiment. Finally, when standing next to the poster board I had decorated and designed, explaining my experiment to people at the science fair, I was proud to present my findings and of all the work I had put into the project. "The Impacts Of A Secondary School Science Exhibition On The Students In Charge"(2014) also talks about skills such as communication with teachers or people outside the student's family benefited because of the science fair projects.
SAHİN, Esin, and Nuray ÖNDER ÇELİKKANLI. "The Impacts Of A Secondary School Science Exhibition On The Students In Charge." Necatibey Faculty Of Education Electronic Journal Of Science & Mathematics Education 8.2 (2014): 71-74. Education Research Complete. Web.
