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Teaching activity – Science fairs

This level 3-4 resource illustrates how traditional science fair projects could be adapted to strengthen students’ capability to engage with science.

A student explaining her science fair project.

Tags

  • AudienceKaiako
  • Curriculum Level34
  • Resource LanguageEnglish

About this resource

Many students participate in science fairs either at a school or regional level. This level 3 – 4 resource illustrates how these could be adapted to strengthen the capability of students to engage with science where students actively participate with others to “do” science. Science fair projects could address any of the aims in any of the contextual strands, depending on the focus of the investigations. 

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Teaching activity: Science fairs 

Learning focus 

Students actively participate with others to engage in science. 

Learning activity 

Many students participate in science fairs either at a school or regional level. 

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Adapting the science fair 

1. Choosing the question

Allow a significant amount of time for choosing the questions for investigation. Over several sessions provide a range of stimulating experiences to start students wondering. This could be a chance to explore and find problems, ideas or wonderings that are specific to your local area. NIWA hold regional science fairs and provide topics to get ākonga thinking. See NIWA Wellington Regional Science & Technology Fair: Challenges for more. 

As a class, brainstorm possible questions for investigation. Now ask: 

  • Which of these questions do we already know the answer to? 
  • Which of these questions could we find out the answer by asking someone or searching online? 
  • Which of these questions are really interesting to you? What makes them interesting? 
  • Are any of the answers you find out going to be interesting/ helpful to other people? 

Give the students time to choose a question that interests them. Ask students to talk to a partner about their question and explain why they are interested in it. 

Ask the class as a whole, “Who had a question that you could tell they really wanted to answer?” 

Discuss these questions. (If there are not many questions that the students appear really interested in, provide more opportunities for exploring. As a teacher you may have to model some questions too. It is important students can find something that really is engaging for them, and it is worth spending time on this initial phase.) 

Once you have about 4 or 5 productive questions ask students to choose one that they wish to investigate. Students then work in pairs or small groups to plan their investigations. (Ideally you want 3 or 4 different groups investigating any question.) 

2. Designing the investigation

To help ākonga plan, visit Science Hub Pokapū Akoranga Pūtaiao: Ways of investigating science page to allow ākonga to find which approach would suit their investigation best.

You could also present students with a te ao Māori approach, seen in The Science of Rongoā and Learning from the Tangata Whenua, that draws on cultural and local knowledge.

Once students have designed their investigations, they present what they are going to do to the other students who are working on the same topic. Students critique each other's designs. 

3. Carrying out the investigation and presenting results 

Encourage students to keep journals about their investigations so that can record the reasons for decisions they make and can keep a track of their changing ideas. 

Once students have finished their investigations get them to present their findings to the other students who are studying the same question. Ask students: 

  • Are there any differences in their findings and what might explain these differences? 
  • What problems/ challenges did students encounter? 
  • Did they have to make any changes as they carried out their planned investigations? Why? 
  • Did the investigation lead them to ask other questions? 

It is important here to stress that science investigations often are not linear and new questions can arise during the investigation. Encourage students to talk about shifts in their thinking – rather than solely on the outcomes of the investigation. 

Each group now prepares a very short summary to present to the whole class: 

  • What were the main questions they were investigating? 
  • What did they find out? 
  • What new questions do they now have? 
  • Why does this matter? 

Supporting students to become scientifically literate, that is, to participate as critical, informed, and responsible citizens in a society in which science plays a significant role is the purpose of science in The 2007 New Zealand Curriculum. If citizens are to be able to engage critically with science, they need a functional knowledge of science. It is not enough to be able to say what science is and what its strengths and weaknesses are, citizens need to be ready, willing, and able to use this knowledge. This resource focuses on these “dispositional” aspects of the capabilities. Students are gathering and collecting data, using and critiquing evidence, and representing their ideas about science, but the focus is on engaging emotionally as well as cognitively by playing a junior version of the “game of science”. 

What are we looking for? 

Are students excited by the activities? 

Do they ask curious questions? 

Do they listen to, and build on each others’ ideas? 

Are they building resilience? Do they see unexpected results as possible learning opportunities? 

Are they developing a sense that science is a collaborative activity? 

There are a wide range of opportunities for students to experience “doing” real science. See, for example, various citizen science projects: 

The Marine Metre Squared project is a citizen science initiative that provides the basis for another capability 3 resource (Teaching activity: Marine Metre Squared). 

The New Zealand Garden Bird Survey, carried out annually by Landcare Research, has quite detailed counting protocols. See the resource, Garden Bird Survey: Participants’ stories, for capability 4: making sense of representations about science ideas. 

The Citizen Science New Zealand: NZ Tui Project asks citizen scientists to collect data on tui behaviour over the summer. The data collection involves quite specific attention to the environment.  

The Science Learning Hub Pokapū Akoranga Pūtaiao has a page about Citizen scientists, linked to a project to monitor monarch butterflies in New Zealand. This project is the basis for a capability 3 (critiquing evidence) resource called Butterfly transects. They also have a collection of citizen scientist projects. 

The virtual field trips run by LEARNZ provide “virtual” opportunities for students to participate in science in the field. 

Enviroschools also provide opportunities for students to be actively involved in environmental projects. Similarly, a number of local and regional authorities offer support for schools to be actively involved in their local areas.