Information about the slide show DVD

Science fair coordinators -- I just wanted to highlight a few important details about the slide show DVD that Our Science Fair produces for your science fair:

1.  We need at least 60 photos uploaded from parents in order to produce the slide show for you.  If we don't get at least 60 photos by the deadline, we won't produce the slide show.  Parents often need to be reminded to upload their photos, so feel free to use our new Send Email feature on your Participants page to send out a reminder to them.

2.  The deadline for uploading photos is 4 days before your science fair.  Only photos that are submitted before the deadline will be included in the slide show.  This is so that we can mail the DVD to you, and you can receive it before your science fair.  The idea is that you can have the slide show running during your science fair as a fun little activity for your visitors.

3.  Our Science Fair may email parents after your science fair is over, offering them a chance to purchase a copy of the slide show DVD.  As the science fair coordinator, you can set the price of the DVD, similar to the way you set the price of display boards and header boards.  Your school keeps the difference between the base cost and the price you set.  Only PayPal payments will be accepted for slide show DVD orders, so you won't have to deal with checks coming in.  You will need to distribute the DVDs to the students when they arrive.

4.  If you are uncomfortable with any aspect of this feature, you can disable it by preventing parents from uploading their photos.  You can do this from your Customize Photo Upload Page page.

That's it for now ... as always, let us know if you have any questions.  We hope your planning is going smoothly ... there are a lot of science fairs coming up in March and April, so it's a busy time for everyone!

--Rajeev

New feature: Teachers can access participant data

January was a busy month over here, while we worked hard to deliver the features that you need for your science fairs.  Today we're excited to announce a new feature called "Teacher Access".

The teachers and staff at your school may need to see the list of students who are registered for the science fair. In particular, they may wish to know which students from their own classes are signed up. However, as the coordinator, you probably do not want to share your coordinator password with them, because then they they would be granted full administrative access to your account.

Now Our Science Fair includes a feature that allows you to give teachers the ability to view the list of participants without giving them the ability to make any changes to the data. To enable this, visit your Account management page, and assign a separate "Teacher password" of your choosing:

If the teacher password is blank, then teachers will not be able to access the data. If you do assign a teacher password, then you will need to somehow inform the teachers of the password. They will need to enter this password in order to be able to access the data. Make sure that the password is not shared beyond the trusted teachers and staff at your school.

Instruct your teachers to visit your science fair website, and click on the "Teachers" link in the upper-right corner:

They will be taken to a page where they will need to enter the teacher password:

Once they enter the correct password, they will be able to view the list of registered participants for the entire school. They can sort the columns, or filter the records by grade level or teacher. They can also download the data to a spreadsheet if they need to save it or manipulate it further.

If you decide to use this feature, let us know what you think ... we'd love to get your feedback!
 
--Rajeev

New feature: Option to disable parent/student photo upload

You can now choose to disable the photo upload functionality for your Our Science Fair site.  Some schools have requested this because they are concerned about violating their district's policy regarding the use of student photos. 

If you would like to disable the photo upload feature, log in to your coordinator pages, and under Site customization, go to Photo upload page.  Near the top of the page, uncheck the checkbox labeled Enable photo upload:

and then press Save.

Disabling this feature will not actually remove the Upload Photos menu item or page from your site.  However, anyone who visits that page will be presented with a brief message indicating that the feature is not supported.  In addition, you will need to make sure to remove any text from other parts of your site that refer to uploading photos, so that your visitors aren't confused by a mixed message.

I also want to take this opportunity to reassure all coordinators that choose to leave the photo upload feature enabled.  The photos uploaded by parents/students will only ever be made available to you, the science fair coordinator.  We do not ever make them publicly available, and we do not share them with anyone except you.  Currently, the only way you can get access to the photos is from the DVD that we will send you a few days before your science fair.  We are working on a way for coordinators to access the photos online, but that is not possible today.

--Rajeev

New feature: Customize the instructions for sending in check

Just a minor new feature announcement today.  You can customize the text that instructs parents on how to write the check and submit it.  Parents see this text when they order supplies and choose to pay by check.  The default text simply says, "Please write a check and send it in with your student to school."  However, some schools would like to have more specific instructions for the parents, such as taking the check to the office, giving it to the student's teacher, or placing it in a special envelope or box dedicated for the PTA.

To customize this text, log in to your coordinator pages, and under Site customization, choose Ordering page.  About three-quarters of the way down the page, you should see this:

Change the text to suit your situation, and press Save.

--Rajeev

New feature: Upload your own banner image

For a while now, we've been missing an important feature: the ability to upload your own banner image for your Our Science Fair website.  You could always change your banner image, as long as the image already existed on another website (typically the banner from your school's primary website).  But you couldn't create your own image on your computer and upload it.  Well, now you can!  The feature is pretty self-explanatory.  Simply go to the Basic Settings page, scroll down to where you see Banner image, and click the Change... button.

In the popup window that appears, click the Browse... button to locate your image on your computer, and click OK.

When you get back to the Basic Settings screen, don't forget that you have to actually press the Save button to apply your new banner to your website:

And voila!  When you go back and visit your site, you should see your new banner at the top:

Note that the banner image we used in this example wasn't the ideal choice because it doesn't stretch across the width of the entire page.  A better choice would have been an image that fits perfectly in the space allocated for the banner, which is 950 x 150 pixels.

--Rajeev

New feature: Upload your own documents and images!

We just launched a new feature that many of you will likely want to take advantage of.  Now you can upload your own documents to your science fair website, making them easily available for students and parents to view.  For example, you may have PDF (Adobe Acrobat) files, Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, etc. that you wish to publish.  To use this feature, first log in to the coordinator section of your site, and go to the new Documents and images page:

Then click on the "Browse ..." button to locate your document on your computer.  You can upload up to five documents at once, but the total maximum is 50 documents for each site.  In this example, we'll just upload one PDF file:

Clicking the Upload button will upload your document to our server, and will give you a confirmation message as well as a table showing the list of all documents that have been uploaded to date (in this case, just the one):

The important column to note here is the one titled Embed this text to link to the file.  This column contains the information you'll need in order to link to the document from any of the pages on your website.  The link in this case is doc.ashx?id=59.  For example, suppose you wanted to include a link to the document in one of the paragraphs on your home page.  Here's how you would do it:

When you now go to view your home page, it will look like this, and clicking on the blue link will take the user to the PDF we uploaded:

If you are authoring your own custom pages for your website, then simply use doc.ashx?id=59 as the URL for the link, as in the following example:

You can also upload images, and embed them into your custom pages.  Stay tuned for a future blog post on how to do that!  (If you're not already, we strongly recommend you subscribe to our blog so you don't miss out on any important announcements!)

--Rajeev

New feature: Add your own custom pages!

We're excited to announce today the launch of a new feature for all Our Science Fair users.  This highly requested feature allows you to add your own custom pages to your school's science fair website.  For example, you may choose to add dedicated pages for some of these topics, rather than trying to squeeze all of the information on the home page:

• Judging criteria
• Project deadlines, checkpoints, and schedule
• Volunteering opportunities
• Project topic selection
• Guidelines for display board layout
• etc.

To add a new page to your website, log in to the coordinator area, and select "Additional pages" from the menu on the left:

You will then see this screen:

Click the "Create New Page" button and you will be taken to a screen where you can edit the title and content for your new page.  For example, for my daughter's school, I put together a page about the different kinds of science projects that a student might do:

By default, your new page will show up in a menu bar near the top of your website with the "Menu Label" you provide.  If you prefer that the page not show up in the menu bar, simply leave this field blank.  Also note that you can add a link to this new custom page from any of the other built-in pages, simply by embedding the "Link text" shown.  You should replace the words "text to display" with something of your choice.

After saving your page, you can visit your science fair website to see what it looks like:

Notice the new menu bar near the top ... the one that reads, "Project types, Judging criteria, Schedule, Volunteering".  These are the custom pages that have been added for this site.

Back in the coordinator section, you can manage your list of custom pages:

Here, you can change the order that the pages show up in the menu bar, and you can further edit or delete any of the pages.

We hope you find this feature useful.  Please feel free to send us any questions or feedback.

--Rajeev

Interview with author of "Science Fair Handbook"

In my quest for resources to help science fair coordinators run better science fairs, I came across a number of books.  Any guesses as to what that number is?  One.  That's right, there is exactly one book out there that discusses ideas for coordinating a fantastic science fair for your school.  It's called Science Fair Handbook: The Complete Guide for Teachers and Parents, by Anthony D. Fredericks and Isaac Asimov:

If you're anything like me, the first thought that goes through your mind is, "Isaac Asimov?  Nahhhh.  It couldn't possibly be THE Isaac Asimov.  Why would Isaac Asimov write a book about science fairs?  It must be somebody else with the same name.".  But in fact, it really is THE Isaac Asimov, one of the masters of science fiction.  Asimov died in 1992, and contributed directly to the first edition of this book a couple years earlier.

The book as shown above is now in its third edition, and was published in 2001.  That makes this edition almost a decade old, but amazingly everything in it is still perfectly relevant.  The only exception is the very last chapter which lists over 40 websites to use as resources.  As you might expect, many of those websites are no longer in existence, and more importantly there are hundreds of new ones that have popped up in the past several years (the best of which is Our Science Fair ).

I was curious to find out more about the book from the primary author, so I called him yesterday, and he graciously agreed to let me interview him.  Anthony Fredericks, though not quite as famous as Asimov, is a well-known author and professor of education at York College in York, Pennsylvania.  He's written 117 books (Wow.  I'm not sure if I've written that many sentences.) including teacher resource books, children's books, and even recently some adult non-fiction science books.  He's also possibly one of the friendliest people I've ever spoken to.

Fredericks was introduced to Asimov through his editor, and when the editor suggested co-authoring a book, it took Fredericks all of about 2 milliseconds to accept the offer.  Fredericks told me about how he remembered using some of Asimov's textbooks in high school, and how excited and honored he was to now actually get to work with Asimov.  There was a time during the writing of "Science Fair Handbook" that Fredericks and Asimov had an amicable disagreement about the philosophy of a particular section.  After weeks of going back and forth, trying to persuade each other, the humble Asimov finally told Fredericks, "You know, I believe that you have more expertise in this area.  So I think we should go with your approach."  Fredericks was shocked by Asimov's concession, and still remembers that day fondly.  Not because he won the argument, but because Asimov actually thought of him as an expert.

I asked Fredericks about his views on the current state of science education in K-12 schools in the United States.  He seemed disappointed that we aren't doing better.  There clearly isn't as much emphasis placed on science in the classroom as there is on reading and math, and he feels that science is just as important.  He says, "You wouldn't even be able to get from your bed to your classroom in the morning without all the innovations that science has given us."  He believes strongly in inquiry-based science, and hopes that his book will give teachers more options for including science into their curriculums.

The book itself is a wonderful resource, and I recommend every science fair coordinator get a copy for themselves.  It's full of great ideas, forms, worksheets, sample timelines, and schedules.  It talks about all the things that can make a science fair a huge success vs. a flop.  It even has resources that you can pass along to the students and parents to help them out with their project, such as choosing a topic (sometimes the hardest part!).  Fredericks says that philosophy of the book is not about how to win blue ribbons at the science fair.  He says that students should be rewarded just for participating, and that it's the process that's important, a philosophy that I strongly agree with.

After you get your copy of the book, don't forget to also get a free science fair website for your school here!  And please leave me a comment if you enjoyed this post.

--Rajeev

Elephant toothpaste on the David Letterman show

I recently wrote a guest blog post for Kayla Fay, founder of 24 Hour Science Projects.  The post talks about a recent episode of the Late Show with David Letterman, where he had Kid Scientists doing demonstrations on his program.  It was a really fun episode, but it left me filled with questions like, "Did that girl just say 'sylum'?  What the heck is 'sylum'?", and "What's that black liquid she's using?", and "Wow, if I could reproduce that demonstration for our science fair, the kids would go nuts.".  So, I did a little bit of research, and I figured out how to reproduce the demonstration, and I thought I'd share my findings.  Check out the post here.  Enjoy!

Kick off your science fair with a show!

How do you generate excitement for your upcoming science fair? How do you encourage kids in all grade levels to voluntarily participate when it's not a requirement?

Many schools kick off their science fair season with a fun school-wide assembly in the gymnasium that is all about science. A great kick-off assembly has a lot of the following characteristics:

• Less talk, more show! Sorry teachers, but the assembly isn't the right time to teach the kids about specific scientific principles ... at least not in any great detail. Do lots of demos that will fascinate your young audience, and keep the show moving. Don't spend more than 8 minutes on any single topic or demo. The main goal is for the kids to walk away realizing that science is really really cool.
• It's like magic. A great science demonstration has a lot in common with a magic trick. It amazes your audiences and leaves them wondering how it works. But the difference is that with science, you don't have to keep the "trick" a secret. Definitely offer a basic explanation of what just happened, but don't expect the learning to necessarily stick. (Teachers may choose to follow up with more detailed explanations in the classroom.)
• Between 30-60 minutes long. That's long enough that it's worth the effort to gather the entire student body in one place, but not so long that the kids start to lose interest toward the end.
• Between 100-400 students. That's big enough that students feel the excitement of a large gathering, but small enough that everyone will be able to see the demos and many students may even get to participate.  Which brings me to ...

Image courtesy of Pacific Science Center
• Audience participation. A great presenter will engage the students directly. He/she might ask the kids questions so they can show off their scientific knowledge in front of their peers. But even better, he/she will ask for volunteers to come up to the stage to actually be part of the demonstration.  One year, Sam from Mad Science did a show for us where he actually got our principal up on stage. The demo involved using Bernoulli's principle to cover her in toilet paper. Thankfully she was a great sport about it, and needless to say, the kids thought it was hilarious!
• No technical difficulties. Don't kill the vibe by keeping your audience waiting while you figure out how to get the microphone hooked up. Test it all out ahead of time.
• Keep it safe. No matter how cool the demo is, it won't leave the impression you want if someone accidentally gets hurt. So make sure your presenter has practiced everything many times before and knows how to keep everyone safe.
• Plug the science fair! Now that you've got their undivided attention, don't forget to actually tell them why they're there. Something short and sweet at the end of the show can work great: "Now, after seeing all that, who here thinks science is cool?!! (Wait for hands to go up.) Well, guess what everyone?  Our school is having our very own science fair this spring, and all of you get to participate! Go home and talk to your parents about it, and come up with an idea for a science project. You can pick whatever topic you want and design your own science experiments at home! So ... who here is going to do a science project for the science fair?!!! (Wait for hands to go up.) Alright everyone, your teachers will be giving you more information when you get back to your classes. Thank you!"

So, once you've actually decided you want to do a kick-off assembly for your school, how do you actually find someone to do the show? Here are some options:

• Your science teachers are pretty busy already, but it certainly doesn't hurt to ask if one of them might be willing to step up and put together a show.
• Another option might be to find a parent volunteer in your community who is especially passionate about science. Just make sure they're actually qualified to do an engaging show and most importantly keep it safe. The internet is full of great science demos that anyone can do without needing a lot of special equipment or materials.  Dry ice makes for some fun demos and is available in the meat section of many grocery stores.
• It's possible that your school already has a relationship with a specific educational science organization, such as Science Adventures or Mad Science. These organizations may be offering after-school science enrichment programs for many students at your school. If that's the case, they may very well be willing to do a show for you free of charge (because it's a way for them to get in front of all the students at once and promote their after-school programs).
• Check your nearest science museum, science center, or children's museum to see if they offer any such programs. You may have to pay for show, so find out if your school or PTA has any budget for this kind of thing.

Image courtesy of Pacific Science Center

I live in Sammamish, WA, which is a suburb of Seattle. At our elementary school, we get Pacific Science Center to come in and do our kick-off assembly, and they do an amazing job. They have a program called Science On Wheels, which is specifically intended for this kind of thing. They offer four different shows, all of which are really exciting for the students (at all grade levels, including high school). Because our school has about 600 students (K-5), we actually do two separate assemblies back-to-back so that each assembly has about 300 students and runs about 40 minutes long. This works out well, and makes for a really fun Friday in January.

Good luck! Please leave a comment if you have other thoughts or suggestions! And don't forget to get a free science fair website for your school at http://oursciencefair.com/.

--Rajeev

Easy science fair demo: The Bernoulli Ball

The heart of any school science fair should of course be the students' projects. But if you want to attract lots of visitors and keep them coming back year after year, it certainly doesn't hurt to have a few cool science demos of your own. Here's one called the Bernoulli Ball that is fairly easy to put together and totally safe. I had it going at my daughter's elementary school science fair last year, and it was a big hit with both parents and kids! It is one of the most well-known demonstrations of the Bernoulli Priniciple, which states that fast moving air has a lower pressure than slow moving (or motionless) air.
 
All you really need is a hair dryer and a ping-pong ball, and voila! Hours of entertainment.

As I show in the 45sec video above, all you have to do is turn the hair dryer on, point it upwards, and gently place the ping-pong ball into the stream of air. The ping-pong ball will appear to magically float in the stream of air. Even if you angle the hair dryer slightly to one side, then amazingly the ball still manages to stay within the stream and not fall down.


The reason this works is as follows. Suppose the ball starts to fall to the right side, and therefore not in the center of the stream anymore. Then the air flowing upward past the left side of the ball is now unobstructed and will therefore be moving faster than the air on the right side of the ball. This creates a lower pressure on the left side, and so the ball gets sucked leftward and back into the center of the stream. Of course, the same thing applies for all directions: no matter which way the ball starts to fall, it gets sucked back into the center where the pressure is lower.

When you angle the hair dryer, the exact same effect is still in place ... up to a certain point. If you angle it too much, then there's not enough air pushing the ball upward, and so gravity takes over and the ball falls down.

As you can see from the video, I built a little contraption out of some spare wood and foam board that I had lying around in the garage. It's basically a little cradle for the hair dryer. It's not a requirement, but it sure made it a lot easier to keep the demo running for a couple hours (so we didn't need someone to stand there and hold the hair dryer up the entire time), and it made it easier to play with the angle of the air stream. We still did have a volunteer supervising the demo to offer explanations and make sure nothing got destroyed.

I also put together a display board, so that visitors who were interested could read more about Daniel Bernoulli, and the principle behind this cool demo:



Finally, and in some ways this was the best part ... I put out a whole bunch of bendy drinking straws and small styrofoam balls (available at craft stores). The idea was that if you could manage to blow a steady stream of air through the straw, then you could make the ball float above the straw yourself. Just like the hair dryer demo, but on a slightly smaller scale. It takes a little bit of practice, but it wasn't long before the entire hallway was filled with kids and parents trying to keep their ball afloat. :) Use a small styrofoam ball rather than a ping-pong ball for this one, because the styrofoam ball is lighter and easier to work with, especially for the kids. The downside is they tend to get smushed easily (and often intentionally), so make sure you have plenty of them available.
 
I hope you find this to be a great demo that you can use year after year at your science fair. If you end up using it, leave me a comment below and let me know how it went!
 
And if you haven't already, don't forget to get a free science fair website for your school at http://oursciencefair.com/.
 
--Rajeev