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Aspiring Young Scientists at Regional Science Fair

Submitted by: John Warner on Mar 20, 2007 at 2:00 pm Tagged with: Academia, Events Source:

Spartanburg, S.C. - The University of South Carolina Upstate will welcome aspiring young scientists to its campus when it hosts the annual Regional Science Fair March 20-24. The Spartanburg Rotary Club raises funds to support the fair, which attracts more than 800 students, their teachers, and parents to the University each year. Participants are inspired to entertain new scientific ideas, create original technologies and bring a fresh perspective to the challenges facing our world.

Science Fair participants will register their projects on Tuesday, March 20, with judging taking place that evening. Schools with winning projects are notified on March 22. On Friday, March 23, the public is invited to view the project from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in the Hodge Gym. An Awards Ceremony will be held on Saturday, March 24 from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. in the Campus Life Center Ballroom.

The Piedmont Region III Regional Science Fair is a state-level fair that includes contestants from Cherokee, Chester, Lancaster, Spartanburg, Union and York. The judging pool includes top local scientists from colleges and universities, from local research laboratories, and from industry. Dr. Lyle Campbell, professor of geology at USC Upstate, is the director of District III Regional Science Fair.

This region includes some 190 schools and usually 50 to 80 schools will submit projects in the competition. During the past two years, participants have also included home-school students and Governor's School participants. The top two winners in senior high division go on to the International Fair and middle school winners are eligible for further participation in the Discovery, Inc. Middle School Challenge.

This area's fair was started in the mid 1950s by a Wofford College professor and is celebrating its 52nd anniversary. USC Upstate assumed responsibility for the Fair in 1975 and it is one of the few fairs that also serves elementary and middle school students. Most fairs host senior high projects only.

The fair integrates, into one functional activity, virtually all of the skills and arts that are usually taught separately in many schools. When brought to completion, the project is an amalgamation of reading, writing, spelling, grammar, math, statistics, ethics, logic, critical thinking, computer science, graphic arts, scientific methodology, self-learning of one or more technical or specialty fields, and public speaking and defense in front of expert judges.

It is, perhaps, the only educational activity that allows students to teach themselves, to take from the established information what they need to discover something exciting and new, and to identify and choose the tools that they need to conduct and conclude their project.

Competing in a science fair yields mature, self-confident, skilled, and competitive young leaders who have career goals and the preparation, discipline, and drive. The project usually is based on scientific questions or interests that the students already have, and allows them to develop the questions independently into formal, testable, solvable problems. When such studies are undertaken in earnest, the students often become driven by their projects. Learning the outcome and finding the answer can be an electrifyingly powerful moment of discovery.

An ordinary student is motivated to become an excellent student, and an excellent student to become a scholar. Of all the programs that a school might offer a student to improve self esteem, it seems that participation in a science fair is one sure-fire way to build student confidence, challenge potential, and instill the incredible feeling of independent achievement that the successful science fair project provides.
Perhaps most importantly, however, graduating high school students with records of awards for original research or engineering at the regional fair and beyond, have a distinct advantage over other college applicants in being considered and accepted by the schools of their choice. This is because science fair honors rank high among the screening factors used by admissions officers at most top universities. Lastly, students who participate in regional fairs have their projects evaluated by top local scientists from research and industry.

Participants whose projects are judged to be worthy of international competition will be judged by the top scientists of the world. Imagine your student discussing a project with a Nobel Prize winner. The exposure and self-confidence such an opportunity generates cannot be quantified.

For more information, contact Dr. Lyle Campbell at (864) 503-5751 or lcampbell@uscupstate.edu.