Escape the Ordinary - Developing a Science Fair

I am currently in my 2nd year of teaching middle school science at a high-risk urban school in Seattle, Washington. My students are extremely diverse coming from over 30 different and blend of cultural backgrounds, low economic status, 90% qualifying for free and reduced lunches, and other factors. I moved to this school district fresh out of from college in Wisconsin and was shocked by the cultural and educational differences between the two areas. My students have many challenges when it comes to receiving a well-rounded and authentic education. Some of these challenges include: language barriers, mental or physical disabilities, behavioral and academic challenges, experiencing homelessness, lacking support at home, and very low student and stakeholder engagement. All in all, many students are not able to be fully engaged and explore STEM due to these aforementioned factors. In addition, we utilize a completely online curriculum that prohibits the amount of hands-on investigations and student-led projects that we can complete.

As head of the science department, my team and I collaborated to determine how we could overcome these obstacles. We looked at our population and looked for gaps in their learning and how to develop a solution that met all of our students' needs. They deserve an opportunity to gain 21st Century Skills and be immersed into STEM through real-world application and diverse lenses. Our goal was to give our students the support and resources to explore STEM and express themselves in a positive environment while increasing stakeholder engagement.

Upon talking to other individuals in education, I have realized that many educators are struggling with engaging students and stakeholders in these more challenging environments. Students do not believe in themselves or have little to no interest. This website and tabs are my original contribution to help bridge this gap and motivate more students to take action. As you read through and use my created resources, please share it with others! Together as educators, we can positively impact students and expose them to the opportunities that lie within the STEM field. We can gather more unique and diverse minds to give them the tools to make real change in the future.

The solution to simultaneously boost student and stakeholder engagement was to develop and implement a school-wide STEM Fair. We originally called it a science fair, but we ultimately integrated the robotics, STEAM, and mathematics classes into it. Thus, you may see the name used interchangeably throughout these pages.

Our team settled on the concept of a STEM Fair for multiple reasons. A barrier that we recognized was that students were not excited and able to experiment in science very often. Many students expressed frustration about not being able pursue topics that they were interested due to needing to follow our time-constrained curriculum. A STEM Fair would allow students to practice real-world application/skills and take control of their own learning. If students became more engaged, we know that stakeholders would follow suit and more opportunities would arise.

The fair gives students a chance to pursue STEM topics that interest and are unique to them. The event is easy for all students to participate regardless of knowledge level, cultural background, or other factors. Diversity is welcomed and students can express their individualism within their projects. Many of our learners are continuously harped on and this fair is a way for collaboration and celebration for them in the community. As a team we identified that the STEM Fair will positively change the perspective on diversity in STEM and address potential boundaries that hinder learners to fully engaging. We had no idea where to begin, so we started at the basics. All of this can be seen highlighted on the following pages for you to model and reuse as needed!.