Community Support for Science
A grant from the Cisco Foundation put Science Buddies on the ground floor of Bayside STEM Academy's annual science fair. Science Buddies partnered with the middle school throughout their science fair season, culminating in Science Budd
Community Support for Science
A grant from the Cisco Foundation put Science Buddies on the ground floor of Bayside STEM Academy's annual science fair. Science Buddies partnered with the middle school throughout their science fair season, culminating in Science Buddies staff visiting the school to judge the school's science and engineering exhibition.
Thanks to support from Cisco Systems, Inc., Science Buddies provided support and a team of volunteer judges for Bayside STEM Academy's science fair. "Science Buddies proved a valuable resource in the success of our school's science/STEM fair," says James Brunner, a teacher at Bayside STEM Academy.
STEM has become a national acronym, but the local school science fair is a reminder that the need for science education exists in every community, in every school, and for every student. Thanks to community businesses and organizations like Cisco, the STEM efforts at schools like Bayside STEM Academy are being recognized and supported.
With its massive library of Project Ideas and extensive Project Guide that helps students at all levels with the steps of a science project, Science Buddies serves more than fifteen million people a year. This number, and the nonprofit's popularity with teachers, students, and parents, continues to grow as more and more emphasis is placed on science, technology, engineering, and math education in K-12 classrooms and at home.
Thanks to ongoing outreach projects and its many support-oriented resources, including the Ask an Expert forums, Science Buddies is in constant contact with members of the Science Buddies community at various stages of their projects, science fair planning, and classroom science integration. Visibility into both student science project successes and stumbling blocks helps Science Buddies continually refine, update, and expand science education offerings and programs as the organization responds to increasing demand for more hands-on science opportunities, activities, and resources.
Although myriad science learning opportunities may exist for K-12 students, both in class, at home, and after school, the school "science fair" remains a cornerstone of hands-on science education for many grade school students. Both at home and as part of in-class computer time, Science Buddies is a prime destination for students during science fair season. Whether students need help finding a project, determining their variables, setting up a project display board, or navigating other steps of the scientific method or engineering design process, Science Buddies strives to help students complete successful science projects and have positive science experiences.
Each year during science fair season, Science Buddies staff members visit local fairs, an important step in staying in touch with how real students, real teachers, and real schools are responding to the national STEM challenge. This year, staff members had the opportunity to be in the field as they volunteered, as a group, to judge the annual science fair at Bayside STEM Academy, a public middle school in San Mateo, CA. The school's curriculum focuses on the intersection between science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and an approach they call "design thinking," a methodology they believe breeds innovators and creative problem solvers.
As its name underscores, Bayside STEM Academy is a science-focused school. The importance of STEM and creative thinking and problem solving is central to the school's belief system, pedagogy, and core offerings. Not surprisingly, the whole school participates during science fair season. Every Bayside student—6th, 7th, and 8th grade—completes a science project. The top forty projects from each grade are then exhibited at the school's science fair.
This year, a grant from Cisco Systems, Inc. enabled Science Buddies to team with Bayside STEM Academy to further support the school's science fair efforts and to attend the fair and judge the student exhibits.
Science Fair Season
A school's science fair often spans a few days. Students set up their projects, and judges review all entries and determine the winners. Then the doors are opened, and the community is invited to come and see the collective exhibition of student science and engineering exploration and acumen. The public viewing may be a period of hours or days, but during this time, the student body, parents, and the community at large have the opportunity to be inspired and excited by the work of local students and teachers.
In addition to their students' use of the Topic Selection Wizard, Project Directory, and Project Guide, the school used the Science Fair Schedule Worksheet to help plan and schedule the fair. According to James Brunner, a teacher at Bayside STEM, this year's science fair was so successful that they plan to hold a fair again next year and will use Science Buddies resources again both for student projects and for fair organization and planning. "We all [the teachers at Bayside] felt that Science Buddies was a big help to our students," says Brunner.
STEM in Action
"James Brunner and the teachers at Bayside STEM are a proven example of successful science fair organization and implementation," says Claire Hubbard, Science Buddies Product Design Engineer. "T