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My district just purchased Gizmos. Thoughts?
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We do not in our district. in a previous district I was involved with they did, and it was more of a horse-and-pony show feeling, just to say that every 9th grade student did that thing...
No, and something that may be surprising supports not mandating participation. A number of years ago a local educational doctoral candidate did a survey to determine correlation between mandatory science fair participation and overall student interest in science among a number of school districts. He at the outset postulated that there was a positive relationship, but after analysis of his data found the opposite to be true....mandated participation negatively affected student interest in science.
Advice....offer such fairs for interested students but don't force them upon the entire student population.
We do not. The middle school doesn't either, unless a senior runs a science fair as their project - & the one I've seen like that was a small fair.
Maybe suggest a STEM exploration event for the non-research kids & a scientific conference for the research kids. I'd love to see more "math night" events & I'd also love to see more kids stepping into a real scientist's job. (Lots of my science Twitter folks were just at a fish & wildlife conference, presenting posters & talks.) If the kids feel a science fair is just busy work, & that's the level of effort they do, it's not worth it.
Nope