Science fairs offer potential opportunities for students to learn first-hand about the practices of science. Over the past six years we have been carrying out voluntary and anonymous surveys with regional and national groups of high school and post high school students to learn about their high school science fair experiences regarding help received, obstacles encountered, and opinions about the value and impact of science fair. Understanding what students think about science fairs will help educators make science fairs more effective learning opportunities. In this paper, we focus on the findings with two national groups of post high school students – undergraduate research fellows (SURF students) who did research at UT Southwestern Medical Center during 2014-2019 and undergraduates biology students attending the 2019 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Alliance (SEA) summer symposium. About 25% of the students who completed surveys indicated that they had participated in high school science fair, but more than half attended high schools where science fairs were unavailable. Effectively, 6 out of every 10 students participated in science fair if available. Students who could have participated in high school science fair but chose not to do so identified not enough time and coming up with their project idea as major reasons why not. About half the SURF students favored requiring non-competitive science fair regardless whether they themselves had participated in science fair. On the other hand, less than 1 in 5 thought that competitive science fair should be required. Introduction to the scientific process and general learning were mentioned most frequently as the reasons to require non-competitive science fair; these reasons were mentioned rarely in connection with competitive science fair. Unlike the national cohort of high school students we surveyed previously, who mostly did science fair in 9^th and 10^th grades, SURF students participated in science fair throughout high school and were twice as likely as high school students to have carried out science fair more than once. In conclusion, our findings suggest that participation of the undergraduate bioscience majors in high school science fairs occurs far more frequently than recognized previously. The findings emphasize further the importance of incentivizing rather than requiring science fair participation, especially in 9^th and 10^th grades, and the potential value of developing non-competitive science fairs.

中文翻译：

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高中科学展：两组本科生物科学学生的经历

科学博览会为学生提供了直接了解科学实践的潜在机会。在过去的六年中，我们一直在对高中和高中后学生的区域和国家团体进行自愿和匿名调查，以了解他们在高中科学博览会上获得的帮助、遇到的障碍以及对价值和影响的看法科学博览会。了解学生对科学博览会的看法将有助于教育工作者使科学博览会成为更有效的学习机会。在本文中，我们专注于两个全国高中后学生群体的研究结果——2014-2019 年期间在 UT 西南医学中心进行研究的本科研究员 (SURF 学生) 和参加 2019 年霍华德休斯医学研究所科学教育联盟 (SEA) 的本科生物学学生) 夏季研讨会。完成调查的学生中约有 25% 表示他们参加了高中科学展，但超过一半的高中没有参加科学展。实际上，每 10 名学生中就有 6 名参加了科学博览会（如果有的话）。确定本可以参加高中科学博览会但选择不参加的学生 完成调查的学生中约有 25% 表示他们参加了高中科学展，但超过一半的高中没有参加科学展。实际上，每 10 名学生中就有 6 名参加了科学博览会（如果有的话）。确定本可以参加高中科学博览会但选择不参加的学生 完成调查的学生中约有 25% 表示他们参加了高中科学展，但超过一半的高中没有参加科学展。实际上，每 10 名学生中就有 6 名参加了科学博览会（如果有的话）。确定本可以参加高中科学博览会但选择不参加的学生没有足够的时间和提出他们的项目想法是主要原因。大约一半的 SURF 学生赞成要求非竞争性的科学博览会，无论他们自己是否参加过科学博览会。另一方面，不到五分之一的人认为应该需要竞争性科学博览会。科学过程和一般学习的介绍是最常被提及的要求非竞争性科学公平的原因；在与竞争性科学博览会相关的情况下，这些原因很少被提及。与我们之前调查的全国高中生不同，他们大多在^第9^届和^第10^届参加科学博览会SURF 学生在整个高中期间都参加了 Science Fair，并且不止一次参加 Science Fair 的可能性是高中生的两倍。总而言之，我们的研究结果表明，本科生物科学专业的学生参加高中科学博览会的频率远高于以前的认识。这一发现进一步强调建立激励机制，而不是要求科学公正的参与，尤其是在9中的重要性^日和10^日档次，开发非竞争性科学博览会的潜在价值。