The science fair mentorship program aims to increase student’s confidence with using and understanding scientific concepts and to increase their ability communicate scientific knowledge. This is done by providing students in grades 8-10 with a positive role model who is currently pursuing a career in science.

UBC undergraduate student, graduate student, and researcher mentors are paired with a small group (3-5) of secondary students. Through 7 mentoring sessions, mentors and their students go through the entire process of designing, running, and analyzing a scientific experiment. The program concludes with a school wide science fair where students present their projects and volunteers act as judges.

This program offers an enriching experience for volunteers as well as students, as they are able to work closely with a small number of students over several visits and see their projects progress from start to finish. Science Fair Mentorship is a perfect program for volunteers who prefer to work with older students or smaller groups of students, as well as those who want to build a deeper relationship with students.

Science Fair Mentorship is a program of the University of British Columbia chapter of Let's Talk Science. You can read more about UBC Let's Talk Science on our website, outreach.letstalkscience.ca/ubc.

As a science fair mentor, you...

• Are paired with other UBC students who support you in your role.
• Work with about three to five high school students. You’ll meet with the high school students for seven sessions from November to February. The first three will be via email or Skype (as a new digital component of the program) and the last four will be at Britannia Secondary School.
• Assist the students with conducting experiments for their topic, help them to collect data from the experiments, support them to interpret the data, and also provide guidance with the presentation board for their science fair project.
• Help judge the school science fair projects at Britannia Secondary School.
• Have fun!

Because mentors build deep relationships with their students, they are expected to attend all components of the mentor program. This means:

1. Orientation/Training at UBC on October 29 or November 5 at 5:30 pm. (Training sessions are identical. Mentors should attend one.)
2. Digital Mentoring Sessions (3 in November)
3. In-Person Mentoring Sessions from 3:30-5:00 pm at Britannia Secondary (5 in January/February including the Britannia Science Fair).

A complete schedule can be found here.