9 years ago, Jim Rixse, Miles Pickering and I at Princeton did research and
wrote a paper on the outcomes of REQUIRED science projects/fairs on students.
Miles passed away a year or so later while the paper was in peer review at
JRST. The results were in complete agreement with the NSTA guideline that
"....required science fairs/project are not a sound idea." The results showed
conclusively that few if ANY students are "turned on" to science by
participating in required science fairs, but many are "turned off." The school
and students were TYPICAL and the teachers involved were excellent,
etc........... Maybe we should be less concerned about turning students "on"
to science and be more concerned about turning them "off" with "good
intentions." IMHO. To date I have heard/read many opinions, but have not seen
any research to the contrary of our findings and the NSTA guidelines. Would
invite all of the list to read Miles' papers and the review of his
life/research in one of the recent issues of NSTA's journal for The College
Science Teacher
Jim Ealy
Education by Demonstration
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Packer Collegiate Institute
Brooklyn, NY USA