Science fair · judges
Judges for fair night: sign-up sheet, schedule and table tents
Checked · v0.1.0
Pick how many entries and judges you have, and the time judging starts. Peabody pairs the judges, gives each pair a run of entry codes with a time for each, and prints the sign-up sheet to pass round, the schedule, and a table tent for every code. The picks stay on this device; nothing is sent.
Opening the judges' planner…
Recruiting judges
Judges at a school fair don't need a science degree. Parents, grandparents, teachers from another school, nurses, engineers and college students all make good ones: the job is to ask questions and listen. Ask for a few more than you need, because someone always can't come; the schedule turns the extra judges into standbys. What the sign-up sheet tells each judge before they sign:
- No science degree needed: you ask questions and listen.
- Each board takes about the minutes on the schedule, two judges together.
- Projects have codes, not names. Score the work on the card's six rows, 1 to 4.
- Leave one kind line for every child.
Pairs, times and standbys
Society for Science, which runs the international fair, asks for at least two judges for each project in a round, and one school district's judging procedures send two judges to each board for four to five minutes. So the schedule puts judges in teams of two (or one or three, if you pick), gives each team a run of codes that sit next to each other, so they walk one row of tables, and spaces the visits by the minutes you pick. Judges left over stand by for a no-show, as the National History Day coordinators' guide suggests.
Table tents and codes
Each entry has a code (A1, A2… a letter for each grade band) instead of a child's name, so judges score the work and the scores can be shared without a name. A table tent stands the code by each board: print, cut along the dashes, fold in the middle. The code-to-name list stays on your paper key from fair night, where the judges score on their phones and the tally adds itself up.
On the night
Give each judge their block of the schedule as they arrive, and send them to scan their own judge card from the fair night page; a judge without a phone can use the paper rubric from the organizer and read their numbers to you at the end. Ask each team to start at its first code and walk its row in order, ticking each entry on the schedule as they go. Keep the standbys near the desk. When a team finishes, collect its cards or files before anyone leaves, so no entry is left with one judge.
Sources: Society for Science, standards for affiliated fairs (judging); Alpine School District STEM Fair, judging procedures; National History Day, coordinator guide on judges. All read 30 October 2026.