For grown-upsPeabody · Science fair

Science fair · for grown-ups

Science fair rules in plain words

Checked

There is no national rule book for elementary science fairs: each district writes its own, usually as a PDF. We read several and wrote down the rules they share. Every one below names where it comes from. Your school's sheet wins.

The 8 rules schools share

  1. 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. Source: UNM STEM-H Center, K–5 research project rules and forms (revised 11 Aug 2022); Washington County School District (Utah), district science fair rules (October 2011); Lowville elementary science fair rules. Your school's sheet wins.
  2. 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. Source: Lowville elementary science fair rules; UNM STEM-H Center, K–5 research project rules and forms (revised 11 Aug 2022); Society for Science, ISEF International Rules and Guidelines. Your school's sheet wins.
  3. 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. Source: UNM STEM-H Center, K–5 research project rules and forms (revised 11 Aug 2022); Society for Science, ISEF International Rules and Guidelines. Your school's sheet wins.
  4. 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. Source: Washington County School District (Utah), district science fair rules (October 2011); Lowville elementary science fair rules. Your school's sheet wins.
  5. 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. Source: UNM STEM-H Center, K–5 research project rules and forms (revised 11 Aug 2022); Society for Science, ISEF International Rules and Guidelines. Your school's sheet wins.
  6. Nothing hot, wet or powered on the display table. One K–5 rule set bans liquids and batteries on the display and anything hotter than 75 °C; another bans open containers. Bring photos and drawings of the test instead. Source: UNM STEM-H Center, K–5 research project rules and forms (revised 11 Aug 2022); Washington County School District (Utah), district science fair rules (October 2011). Your school's sheet wins.
  7. The board has a size limit. A common limit is 30 inches deep, 48 inches wide and 96 inches high, from the table. A standard 36 × 48 inch tri-fold fits. Source: Washington County School District (Utah), district science fair rules (October 2011). Your school's sheet wins.
  8. The words on the board are the child's own. Judges at elementary fairs favour children's own language and drawings over a grown-up's typing. Source: Washington County School District (Utah), district science fair rules (October 2011). Your school's sheet wins.

Where these come from

The most detailed elementary rule set we found is the UNM STEM-H Center's K–5 rules for New Mexico's affiliated fairs, revised in 2022. The Washington County School District in Utah publishes its district rules, including the display limits. The Lowville elementary fair puts three rules on one page: no open flames, no live animals at the fair, no dangerous chemicals. Above them all sit the Society for Science's international (ISEF) rules, which most regional and state fairs follow, and which require forms and a review committee for any project with people, vertebrate animals or microbes.

What Peabody's projects refuse, in code

Every project on the science fair pages is data, and before it can be shown a check reads every word of it (the question, the steps, the materials, the explanation) and refuses it if it says any of these:

  • No flames: a match, matchstick, matchbox, lighter, candle, flame, fire, burn…
  • No chemicals off the kitchen list: bleach, ammonia, rubbing alcohol, peroxide, borax, acetone, drain cleaner, lye…
  • No animals: dog, cat, hamster, fish, guinea pig, rabbit, bird, ant…
  • No cultures: mold, mould, bacteria, germ, petri, culture, yeast, swab…
  • No people as the thing tested: survey, reaction time, memory test, taste test, volunteer, classmate, blood, saliva…
  • No social media: tiktok, youtube, instagram, snapchat, facebook, post a video, upload, film yourself…

It also refuses any material that isn't on a kitchen safe-list (nothing labelled as a careful liquid, no coin batteries or loose magnets), any tool a grown-up must hold on a step a child does, hot water before 2nd grade, and fewer than three tries at each of three levels. The list is deliberately blunt: a word that trips it by mistake costs us a rewrite, and a word that slips through could cost a child a rejected project.