What do the Science Projects look like?

1. What do the Science Projects look like?

2. What does a Judging Interviewlook like?

3. Top 10 Things a Judge Should Do • Work to put the students at ease • Encourage conversation • Listen actively • Ask the students about their project, not just what they did. • Ask the students enough questions to satisfy yourself that they understood the project – when you have reached the student’s knowledge limit, STOP asking questions. • Let the students show their knowledge– let them teach you something. • Give positive reinforcement to nourish self esteem. • Give one suggestion for improvement • Remember when you were 12 years old-this is scary! • End the interview on a positive note.

4. What NOT to do • Display Boredom • Tally judging sheets in front of the students • Belittle the student or their project • Criticize or treat lightly • Compare to projects seen in other competitions • Refer to other projects you have seen today • Discuss winners or critical comments about particular projects in places where students or parents might overhear

5. Judging Tips • Pace yourself. Your interviews should last no longer than 5-7 minutes with each of the students. This can be hard to do! • Make sure project has a data book—if not, they can not be considered for an award. • Revise your scores as many times as you need. • Be consistent with your scoring. Don’t worry about how the other judges are scoring projects. • Please don’t give all of your projects the same score. • Judge the “best” and encourage the rest.

6. Judging Tips • Look for evidence of laboratory, field or theoretical work, not just library research or gadgeteering. • Be sure to take into consideration the amount of time spent working on the project and the amount of data collected (if it is pertinent to the student’s research). • Determine if there are adequate data to support the conclusions? Are the conclusions based on a single experiment or replication? • Was the student able to quantify their data? • Does the experiment reflect the student’s knowledge and abilities? We understand and expect that the students will be receiving help with their experiments, however, we want the final product to be their own work.

7. Judging Interview

8. Special Awards • Be on the lookout for projects that: • Show promise (not necessarily the highest scoring, but a good effort)-someone we want to encourage so that they stay interested in science • Put judge sheets of these projects in the special box on Steph’s desk (near laptop).

9. What to do when done • Check with Steph or Becca or Ashley to make sure you judged each of your assigned projects. • Tally your score sheets. • Turn in your score sheets to Steph or whoever is at the computer • Return your judge ribbon • THANK YOU!!!