Science Fair Olympiad

The new science fair contest begins Jan 15, 2009, but because you are on the mailing list you get a couple of days headstart! Make sure that you read all the requirements that you download.

New Change: You can submit your entry form electronically, but you still need both you and one of your parent's signature that you write with a pen. This will make it easier for you to enter if you live out of the United States.

Congratulations to all the winners. When you read their project, see their images, you will learn a lot. They not only won the contest but they contributed 7 pages of helpful information to other students. Thank you. All the students below are homeschooled. They are siblings too and it is not the first time they have entered the contest.

6 yr old Garrett had fun doing a solar oven kids experiment projects and served his family dinner that he cooked himself! He won a telescope and because he created a video that he put on YouTube he also received a fun paper airplane kit.

15 year old Megan starts here with the abstract, then follow the links to the rest of the pages. chromatography of plants sience fair project. Here project was excellent but she forgot to include a hypothesis. Jeff Coda, who is a Vice President of Elenco provided the prizes for Megan ad Kendra. He insisted on awarding Megan a microscope.

17 yr old Kendra abstract begins here at infrared light science fair project. Kendra had an interesting environmental twist to her project. Kendra won first prize and was sent the Snap Circuit 750R - Elenco's best snap circuit set.

Beware! The season of science fair projects has begun, and the pressure kids come under from parents and teachers is intense. I see the panic emails from kids and parents every year. Yes, I understand that young scientists can win college scholarships and significant cash prizes, and their schools stand to gain more funding for their science programs.

Still, when the emphasis is put only on winning, the most important achievement tends to get overlooked. It happens when a child goes through the very first step of the scientific method and writes his hypothesis, guessing what the outcome of an experiment will be.

Within the hypothesis statement is a comparison between controlled and experimental variables. By making up an experimental variable, young scientists take a chance that something they believe to be true—something they have an intuition or curiosity about—will happen. Taking this step is huge! The child makes a stand, telling the world that she believes in her ideas and creativity.

If the experimental variable proves to be true, the child has the benefit of reinforcing his belief. If the experimental variable proves false, the child then has the opportunity to stretch her imagination and come up with another idea the next time.

The point of this process—and the undeniable value—is that children are able to use it for the rest of their lives. As humans we are constantly testing ourselves, experimenting with new ideas, new ways of being. There is no right or wrong—there is simply feedback. If what we do doesn’t work, then we enroll another strategy until we find a behavior or action that does work. We learn and grow from these experiences. We learn to adapt. That’s what life is about.

Yes, money is a nice prize, but not nearly as important as what the young scientist does to win it. Going through the process actually yields the best prize of all—the adventure of exercising one’s brain power to experience the world of possibilities. This is what that the adults in a child’s life really need to emphasize.

This year our goal is to contribute 500 new science fair projects to the Super Science Fair Projects.com site. We now have 3 contributions because of Garrett, Megan and Kendra. . Here's what you can do...

1. Ask your school to send us copies of science fair projects that other students have completed over the years in a Word document. We only publish the student's 1st name, grade, city, state / providence, and country. If they have images of backboards, that would be an added treasure.
2. You can send in and donate your own science fair projects in a Word document.
3. Teachers, you can send in projects that you have received over the years.
4. Parents, talk with your children and ask them if they would be willing to contribute their science fair projects.

Join this drive to have as many science fair projects available to those who do not have the supplies to do their own. Send them as an attachment to thegoodlife@comcast.net