🏅 What science fair judges reward

A few minutes and a board

Families search for science fair projects that will win, as if the topic decides it. The judging tells a different story. At the Alpine School District's fair, two judges visit each project for about four to five minutes. In that time they read the board and talk with your child. A clever topic can't explain itself in five minutes; your child has to.

The questions are about the child's own test, not the topic. The 9 questions in Peabody's judge's practice are written in a child's words from Alpine's procedures and Scientific American's five most common questions from a science fair judge, a piece written with high school fairs in mind. Three of them:

• What made you want to ask this question?
• What did you change, and what did you measure?
• What did you find out? Show me in your numbers.

Each is answered best by the child who did the work.

Presenting and defending the work

EDC (Education Development Center) studied US middle school science fairs from 2014 to 2018 for "Science Fairs Under the 'Scope", with funding from the National Science Foundation. It surveyed 185 middle school fair coordinators, from a nationally representative sample of schools, how their fairs ran, then followed 21 schools closely, with students answering questions before and after their fair.

Students at fairs where they presented their work and defended it, or critiqued other students' work, gained more in their understanding of how science is done. Of the help teachers gave, the kind that stood out in the results was support for critiquing work and practising presentations before the judges came.

That's the part a parent can give at home. Ask your child to tell you about the test, then ask why, then ask them to show you in the numbers. Let them stumble and try again. A practice run at the kitchen table is still a practice run.

Coaching for the interview

Grinnell and colleagues, writing in PLoS ONE in 2022, surveyed high school students who did science fairs in seven US states. Students who said they were coached for the interview with the judges were more than twice as likely to go on past their school's fair as students who weren't. That's a link the study found, not a test of coaching on its own.

Those were older students at competitive fairs, but the habit underneath is the same at any age: say it out loud before the day. At home, coaching can be as simple as being the judge. Ask the question, listen to the whole answer, and let your child find better words on the second try, rather than handing them yours.

Two free tools practise it. The judge's practice asks the 9 questions about your child's own project, and they tap the best answer of three. On the same page, the 60-second talk builds five lines from their project and their numbers (the question, what they changed and kept the same, what they found, what surprised them and what they'd test next), reads them aloud and times a run against a minute.

Their own topic

The same EDC study found that girls who had more say in choosing their topic and designing their test held on to their sense of themselves as good at science, while girls with less say lost it. For boys it reported a different pattern, linked to how competitive the fair was. So this is a finding about middle school girls, not a rule for every child, but it's a good reason to let your child choose.

Choosing from a short list you've already checked still counts. Pick my project asks four questions, and one of them is what your child likes; they tap the answer themselves. Then ask them why they picked it. That answer is the judge's first question, practised early: "What made you want to ask this question?"

Numbers they can point at

This part is Peabody's advice, not a study's finding. Several of the judge's questions ask what the numbers show, such as "What did you find out? Show me in your numbers." and "Was your hypothesis right? How do you know?" A child who can put a finger on a mean answers those without notes.

• The Graph Maker takes each try from a number pad, works out the means and draws the graph, with a line on each bar from the smallest try to the biggest.
• The logbook writes a dated line for each day they worked, from three taps, so "Did anything go wrong, or surprise you?" has an answer written down.

Both keep everything on your device. Nothing your child taps is sent anywhere.

What the studies don't say

• They're about older students. EDC studied middle school fairs, and Grinnell's team studied high school fairs. We found no study of elementary fairs, so we can't tell you any of this works the same way for a 1st grader.
• They show links, not guarantees. Presenting was linked to learning more about how science is done, and coaching to going further, in the fairs they studied. Neither promises a ribbon.
• Neither ranks topics. No source here says one kind of project wins.

For a younger child the habits are still cheap and safe: their own question, said in their own words, with a finger on what happened. Keep practice short and make it a chat, not a drill. What judges ask has each question with a 9-year-old's answer, and how much should a parent help? is about where your hands go.

Where this comes from

We read these on 30 October 2026:

• EDC (Education Development Center), "Science Fairs Under the 'Scope", key findings: a National Science Foundation study of US middle school science fairs, 2014 to 2018.
• Grinnell and colleagues, "High school science fair: Ethnicity trends in student participation and experience", PLoS ONE, 2022: a questionnaire study of high school science fair students in seven US states, 2018–19 and 2019–20.
• Alpine School District STEM Fair, judging procedures.
• Scientific American, the five most common questions from a science fair judge.