Parents and guardians

If your school has a science fair, winners are typically entered into the regional science fair.   If your school does not do this, know that your children can directly enter a regional science fair in your area.  Most regional science fairs are for grades 7-12, some even earlier.

Even if your child is in elementary school and not eligible to enter, it is not too early to introduce them to science fairs by visiting your regional fair during one of the public viewings.   This can plant an idea to do a project in the future, and they will get to see the types and styles of projects exhibited.

And finally, all it takes is 1 parent in a school to ensure the school is spreading the word about the regional science fair so other youth have a chance to learn and participate.

Teachers and principals

Regardless of whether or not your school has a science fair and sends some of the better projects to your regional fair, it is important to let all students know about their regional science fair.

This should be done through school news letters and other methods such as posters, and communicated at least 3 times in the year:

• early in school year so interested students can begin a project
• before registration opens so students are reminded to register
• a few weeks before the regional fair so students may plan to attend a public viewing to learn and get inspired for future participation
  

Teachers, organizing a school science fair can be a lot of extra work, and if the school you work in doesn't have one, that is ok.  You get an A+ for simply communicating the regional fair in a fashion as suggested above.

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Akin to sports, in science fairs youth can participate for fun and development, or participate in a more competitive way.   For all that participate, whether competitively or not, it can be a very important learning experience for many of the values outlined on the SFF home page.  For this reason parents and teachers should do their best to make students aware of their regional science fair.

Find your nearest regional science fair

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Parents and teachers - upcoming resource guide for you

Stay tuned to the Resource Guides section later this year.  The plan is at some point later in the year, to release a guide "Student's Guide to Better Maker Projects" that will give parents, teachers, and students some useful suggestions on how to be more resourceful when it comes to maker type projects.

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SFF author's anecdotal story - Having participated myself in the CWSF in 77, I was curious to see how it had evolved back in 2008 when the CWSF was being hosted in Ottawa.   So I went to the final public viewing with my 2 elementary school children thinking it would be something fun and educational for us to do together, and if at some point in the future one of them decided to do a science fair project, they would have some notion of what is involved.  During their later years, they both did science fair projects and the experience and learning changed their lives.