Science Fair: For Visiting Scientists
We are in need of science minded people to act as visiting scientists during the science fair. Your role is to review the exhibits and award the students ribbons for participation. Please fill out the Visiting Scientist Form if you are interested in participating.
We ask that our Visiting Scientists review the following points before the Fair:
• Please arrive by 6:50 PM. You will be assigned a list of students to speak with and given ribbons to award. Your packet should be in order with the younger grades before the older. Please review the exhibits in this order so our younger scientists can get home earlier.
• For each name on your list, visit the appropriate exhibit and identify the student scientist. You may have to come back if your student seems to be missing at the time. If the student is talking to someone else, please politely interrupt and gently state that you are the Visiting Scientist and that you’d like to hear about the exhibit. “Hi. My name is Dr./Mr./Ms. So-and-so and I’m a Visiting Scientist. Please tell me about your science project.”Visiting Scientists take priority.
• Defer judgment. A Visiting Scientist’s role is to ask questions, offer insights, and speak words of encouragement. There will be a wide range of subjects, quality, confidence, pride, and evidence of adult help on projects. None of these factors should be judged or qualified. This is all about curiosity, imagination, and fun. We are there to encourage kids to be interested in science.
• You should feel free to ask questions and encourage a dialog with the student scientist. Some won’t have answers to these questions. Here are some sample questions, but feel free to make up your own:
Explain your project and the results.
Did anything about the project surprise you?
Did anything go wrong during the experiment?
What would you do differently if you could do the project over?
What would you be interested in testing if you could do it over?
• Everybody wins. Talk to the students about their project. When you are done, let them know what a great job they did and award each student with a ribbon for participation.
• Try to spend no more than 5 minutes at each exhibit. Sometimes it takes time to find the exhibits and students, and students at the end of your list may have a hard time waiting. Your efforts to stay focused and to try to finish as early as possible are appreciated. As the fair takes place on a school night, many of the students may need to be rushed off to bed.
• If you can’t find the exhibit or if the student is not at the exhibit, move on to the next one and circle back. Some exhibit numbers may be out of order because an exhibit had to be moved.
• Aim to finish at 8:00 pm so students can relax and roam for the last 15 minutes and check out the other exhibits.
• If you finish early, seek out other Visiting Scientists to see if you can help with any outstanding exhibit reviews.
Contact Us
If you would like more information, please contact us at [email protected].