Organizing a school event is difficult, particularly when it comes to science fairs. However, with proper guidance, you can manage it with aplomb. And to help you out, here is a step-by-step guide for curating the most memorable school science fair:
Set Your Goals
Setting goals will help you realize what you need to do for the science fair. It will give you a to-do list, and guide you through the entire journey.
The goals you set need not be too elaborate. After all, it is simply a school science fair. Your goals can be as simple as getting a good sponsorship deal, having the local paper do a story on the fair, and so on.
You will return to the to-do or goals list once the science fair is over.
Decide the Date and Time
The date and time of the science fair is something you will have to decide with your teachers. It should be during a time of the year when students aren’t busy with exams or classes. Ideally, a science fair right before or after summer vacation could be a great option. However, it is still better to consult with the school authority.
Plan a Schedule
Your proposed schedule should have an hour-by-hour or segment-by-segment breakdown of the science fair. Start with the arrival of guests, parents, and students. Follow that up with the arrival of judges and special guests. Allocate the most amount of time for the judging part of the fair.
Finally, add a segment for the declaration of results and distribution of prizes. The ending segment could also have a slot for speeches from your special guests and judges.
Plan the Venue and Layout
Once you decide on a venue, you will have to think of a layout. For displaying the projects, you can set up school desks in an end-to-end arrangement. Utilize school furniture, like chairs and tables, as much as you can.
Instead of the regular classroom desks, you can also opt use lunch tables for schools and cafeterias. They are long and can accommodate more projects. Plus, it will take less time for you to set up the venue with these tables.
As long as the school lunch tables are of top-notch quality, they will provide good support to the projects displayed on top of them.
Recruit Volunteers
Recruiting volunteers for the science fair is one of the most crucial steps. That is because you are going to need all the help you can get. And student volunteers will be of great help to you.
From guiding guests to their seats to helping participants with any issues they might face – science fair volunteers will come in handy. Set specific roles or duties for them to make their lives slightly easier.
Among the volunteers, see if you can find someone with a good camera and photography skills. Otherwise, you will have to hire a photographer to cover the event.
Decide on the Awards
For the awards, you will once again have to get in touch with the school authorities. The best options here will be to either go with crests, medals, or certificates. Also, assuming participants have to form teams, don’t have a single award or trophy for the entire team.
Instead, have individual ones. So, if the science fair requires mandatory four members in each team, have four medals, crests, or certificates.
Register Participants
Most science fairs take place classwise. So, the competition is also classwise. That means teams from the seventh grade, for example, will face off against each other, not against teams from other grades. it will be easier for you to distribute the registration responsibilities to the respective homeroom teachers.
Ask teachers to collect all the necessary information, including names, addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers. Or, you can simply set up a central registration system using a Google Form.
Reach Out to Potential Judges and Special Guests
Science teachers from your school can be the initial judges. To accompany them, you can also invite special guests and judges. These judges can be anyone – from a local author or scientist to a college professor. Ideally, you should bring someone who is interested in science or connected to the scientific community.
Publicize the Fair
Sending press releases to the local papers is a good way to publicize the science fair. Take advantage of social media platforms too. Apart from sharing posts and news from the school page, you can also create an event page for the science fair. It will help you organize everything under one umbrella.
Close the Ceremony
The closing ceremony will include award distribution and speeches from special guests. Try to finish before daylight goes out. Otherwise, the photos won’t come out that well.
And with that, you have successfully hosted a school science fair. Don’t forget to pat yourself on the back after it is done because you deserve it!