Restoring the in-person state science fair

K-12 STEAM education

Applying a proven solution to a new issue or sector (using an existing model, tool, resource, strategy, etc. for a new purpose)

The goal is to provide the opportunity for high school and middle school students to learn to be student scientists and for them to have a chance to present their work competitively to professional scientists and engineers so as to increase their own understanding. An additional benefit to students is that the fair gives them a leg-up in pursuing a college education. What is currently missing and desperately needed is an adequately funded program that will bring the state finals back to Los Angeles as a live event after a half-decade of frustration. We should point out that there are thousands of student scientists competing all over California, and that Los Angeles County contributes many participants including one-eighth of the 800 to 1000 statewide finalists. The task is to provide a physical space, to recruit 350 volunteer scientists and engineers as judges, to provide for all the physical needs of the fair, and to run the entire event.

We will host a live, in-person state science fair in Los Angeles County in April of 2025. Our expectation is that once we have reestablished the live event that we used to have, we will be able to continue it as an annual Los Angeles County program. Creation of the fair involves a number of items that have to be solved successfully, including finding and renting a venue which provides adequate space for students and their project presentations as well as discussion rooms for judges and a location for staging awards presentations. This part is new to us, but well within our capabilities. In fact, we did a lot of work in researching these tasks in our formative stages in late 2023. We will also recruit and train the volunteer judges, but we have a lot of experience in doing this, and we will have a substantial number of judges returning from previous years provided we can keep the fair in Los Angeles County. Preparations for the fair include a process for accepting student applications, reviewing student project materials, renting the required gear including tables to hold the display panels, and oversight of technical requirements such as sound and video production. On the day of the fair, our judges will interview each student participant, after which the judges will meet and decide on the award winners. We also have a special panel which decides on the "project of the year" winner in both junior and senior divisions.

The city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County include school districts which have been underserved in terms of "learning by doing" as an approach to science education. By holding the annual science fair finals right here in L.A., we encourage student scientists to attend the fair and thereby to think about a career in science, medicine, or technology. If the fair were to be relocated to another place such as Sacramento or San Francisco, it would be that much more difficult for Los Angeles students and their parents to attend and participate. In addition, most of our judges work right here in Los Angeles, and we would like to keep it that way. There is of course a certain amount of local economic benefit when several hundred families visit Los Angeles in order to attend the science fair. The return of the in-person fair will also make possible a return of the public viewing session we used to have.

The first consideration is whether we can hold a live, in-person fair as opposed to continuing the online virtual fair process. The next measure is how many students participate. A third measure is how many volunteer judges return from one year to the next. Obviously a major consideration in this first year as an independent nonprofit organization is the amount of money we raise. At a different level, we are always interested in knowing that the science fair is benefitting the students, and how. We have recently begun interviewing former participants and we have found a substantial number who say something along the lines of "the fair changed my life." These are people who went on to a career in science, medicine, or engineering. We are interested in collecting their stories. Ultimately, there are the scientific advances in many areas contributed by the fair's former participants, and even the value of the substantial fiscal stimulus to the California economy from science.