Science fair

Helping without doing it

Checked 6 November 2026

The short version. Pick the project together (the picker takes four taps), let the hypothesis be wrong, insist on three tries at every level, and keep the words on the board your child's own. Everything here is free, needs no account, and nothing your child taps is sent anywhere.

How much should a parent help?

Think of yourself as the adviser: you can ask questions, keep things safe, hold the ruler, drive to the store and read the steps aloud. What you shouldn't do is choose the question, decide the answer, or write the board. One district's rules tell its judges to favour a child's own language and drawings, and most judges can tell a grown-up's neat typing from a mile away.

A useful rule of thumb is to keep your hands on the safety and the schedule, and theirs on the science. Every project on Peabody marks the steps a grown-up does (20 of the 118 projects have one, such as cutting with a knife or pouring hot water). For the rest, your best tool is a question: "What did you keep the same?", "How do you know?", "What would you change next time?" Those are the questions a judge will ask too.

What a fair expects at each grade

	1st–3rd	4th–6th	7th and up
The question	One thing changed, one thing counted or seen	One thing changed, one thing measured with units	One thing changed, then a second variable
Tries	Three at each level (one is fine at a first fair)	Three at each level	Three or more at each level
The table	Levels and tries, numbers or pictures	Units in the header and a mean column	A mean for every level of both tests
The graph	A picture, or a simple bar graph	A bar graph, or a line for a number that grows	A graph with two lines or two sets of bars
The conclusion	What happened, in their words	Right, partly or not, and the numbers that show it	The numbers, what might have gone wrong, and a next question
A grown-up's hands	Reads, writes down, holds the ruler	Checks and asks questions	Advises; the child runs it

The project pages follow this table: the results sheet adds a mean column for projects that reach 4th grade, and every project has a second variable to test for 7th grade and up. There are pages of projects for 2nd graders, 4th graders, 7th graders and every grade between, and a page for a first high school fair.

Safety: what schools ban

No flames of any kind. Every rule set we opened bans open flames, at home and at the fair. No candles, matches or lighters, and nothing that burns.
No live animals at the fair. Living things stay home, and projects that test animals need forms and a teacher's review at every level up to the international fair.
Don't grow mold or bacteria at home. The K–5 rules we read say no microbe cultures at home. Older students do these only under a teacher, with forms.
Kitchen chemicals only, in small amounts. Elementary rules allow safe household things such as baking soda and vinegar, and ban dangerous chemicals. One rule set limits a safe chemical to under a tablespoon on display.
Projects that test people need a review first. Taste tests, surveys, reaction times and memory tests all use people as the thing tested, and every rule set we read says those need review and consent before they start.

Peabody's projects keep every one of these, and not because a paragraph promises it: each project is checked in code against a list of banned words and a kitchen safe-list of materials, and a project that fails can't be published. Projects that test people (taste tests, reaction times, memory) are left out entirely. Your school's sheet wins. The rules in plain words page has all 8, with where each comes from.

From today to fair day

Every project, short or long, has the same five jobs. Keep a project on your child's device and set the fair date, and Peabody spreads them across the days:

Gather what you need and print your sheets.
Do the test: the first try at every level.
Do it again until every level has its tries.
Find the middle numbers, draw the graph, write the conclusion.
Make the board.

If the fair is this weekend, choose from the one-weekend projects; with two weeks or more, the projects that grow (beans, plants, crystals) make the best logbooks. 80 of the 118 projects cost nothing if you have the usual kitchen and junk-drawer things.

For teachers

The organizer turns your fair date into six dated lines, a letter home with blanks for your school's details, a six-row judging rubric, a judge's question card and a class set of sheets. It runs in your browser and sends nothing. Curious how Peabody is built and checked? See the science behind Peabody.