{"id":163,"date":"2007-02-23T07:27:46","date_gmt":"2007-02-23T11:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=163"},"modified":"2008-08-05T12:07:52","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T16:07:52","slug":"another-sad-science-fair-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=163","title":{"rendered":"Another sad science fair story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s yet another story lamenting the decline in science fair participation<\/a>. It’s good to see that some schools actually offer science project classes that kids apparently enjoy. But for the rest … gotta prepare for the test, ya know!<\/p>\n

Science fairs used to be big deals — competitions that exercised critical-thinking, research and public speaking.<\/p>\n

But participation in county science fairs has dropped dramatically among Florida high-school students — ironically, at the same time the state has ordered teachers to focus more intensely on biology, chemistry and other sciences.<\/p>\n

The new science portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, in fact, is helping fuel the trend because teachers and students are so occupied with the FCAT, they don’t spend as much time and effort on science fairs, many educators say.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

In Lake, only five qualified for the fair there. Last year, 20 did, said Lake’s science specialist, Claudia Rowe. She said changes in the rules for science projects in recent years have discouraged students, too. The main complaint: paperwork.<\/p>\n

“Instead of it being a fun thing to learn, it’s become more of a paperwork thing and jumping through hoops,” Rowe said.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Experts across the country said no studies exist and no one collects data for science-fair participation.<\/p>\n

But Anne Holbrook, a University of Maryland professor who teaches educators how to teach science, said based on many anecdotes, it appears to be a national problem. She thinks the problem is the national push for tests such as the FCAT. She said schools need to do a better job integrating science into other classes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s yet another story lamenting the decline in science fair participation. It’s good to see that some schools actually offer science project classes that kids apparently enjoy. But for the rest … gotta prepare for the test, ya know! Science … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-2D","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":155,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=155","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":0},"title":"No time for science fairs?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"As I scan through the news looking for interesting tidbits for this blog, I commonly see quite\u00c2\u00a0a few articles about science fairs throughout the state. So, I had not idea that science fair participation for the upper grades is declining. TAMPA - While hundreds of students gathered Monday to show\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the Classroom"","block_context":{"text":"In the Classroom","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":883,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=883","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":1},"title":"Science fairs and Olympiads roundup","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"South Brevard science fair: Why it matters Last year, science fair projects led to Brevard students winning more than $253,000 in cash awards, prizes and college scholarships at regional, state and international science fairs. Edison science and engineering fair: Samantha Prabakaran's experiment was no small feat. She worked last summer\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2287,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2287","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":2},"title":"The Florida Foundation for Future Scientists Need Your Help","author":"Jonathan Smith","date":"April 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"As some of\u00c2\u00a0you may have heard during the State Science and Engineering Fair of Florida last week the\u00c2\u00a0FFFS\u00c2\u00a0has launched a funding campaign to raise money to continue the sponsorship of the SSEF. The FFFS is a statewide, non-profit organization authorized by the 1957 Legislature of the State of Florida to\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2287#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":196,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=196","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":3},"title":"Perspective on science fairs","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I've posted here before about stories lamenting the decline in science fair participation. A retired professor has a different\u00c2\u00a0perspective on what's going on at science fairs and just how useful they are (or not). My experience has been that many of these competitions, like a lot of competitions among children,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Analysis\/Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":820,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=820","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":4},"title":"High School researchers","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Palm Beach County students radiate worms, look for oncogenes, even sell surfboards in pursuit of science. Though the county has a long tradition of its top students earning honors at state and international science fairs, projects on the whole are growing in scope and complexity. More students are spending their\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":114,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=114","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":5},"title":"Catching up on the news","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 5, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Middle school goes beyond the classroom. Boca Raton \u00c2\u00b7 In a middle school with a voracious appetite for innovation, half a dozen teachers are pushing back the walls of the classroom. They're using cameras so that students at home or on vacation can get their lessons. Podcasting and live streaming\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}