1,700 Students Compete In The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair

a.k.a. "the look at who has access to lab and/or test equipment expo, surprisingly in the same field as their parent(s)"

pxc said:

a.k.a. "the look at who has access to lab and/or test equipment expo, surprisingly in the same field as their parent(s)"

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Nothing wrong with that. Science fairs were never presumed to solely be tests of natural ability, and it's not like it would be better for society if they didn't put their resources to best use. I'm actually surprised that the talk of "privilege" hasn't attacked these events to a further extent.

Was interesting to check out the list of finalists. I was going country by country going, cool...you guys got five...China has a dozen or so...good participation all around! Then I get to the US and they have more than that PER STATE.

Bit lopsided in representation.

Maxx said:

Was interesting to check out the list of finalists. I was going country by country going, cool...you guys got five...China has a dozen or so...good participation all around! Then I get to the US and they have more than that PER STATE.

Bit lopsided in representation.

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Perhaps the participation is down or they give more contestants to the home country ... when I did science fair back in the early 80's you had to beat out a lot of folks to make it to International ... I won at my local and regional (as an alternate) but never made it past State to Nationals ... it used to be the winners of Nationals that went on to the International Science Fair ... I didn't think the International Fair was always in the USA so just as the Olympics allow host countries more participants, maybe Science Fair does too

kbrickley said:

Perhaps the participation is down or they give more contestants to the home country ... when I did science fair back in the early 80's you had to beat out a lot of folks to make it to International ...

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I've been a judge at one of the regional fairs for the past 4 years. There is no national fair (at least not in this system) -- selected winners from the regional fairs are sent to ISEF. I'm not sure how the international representation works, but there are really strict rules for how the fair is set up (I assume those rules come from the ISEF organizers). I suppose that as long as the fair meets those standards it shouldn't matter what country the entrants come from. Also remember that these kids will have a poster and presentation that need to be judged -- I would assume that all of this has to be done in English for logistical purposes.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the winners as kids who are lucky enough to have access to equipment. A lot of them do, but through their own means. A girl I judged this year was working in an academic lab for her research, but the PI of that lab didn't want her using his resources for free so she did non-research related work (menial labor type stuff) as compensation. In other words, she was working a part-time job in order to spend her free time doing research in that lab. Her work was excellent and she had a ton of interesting data. It's easy to dismiss these kids as being lucky for having access to these resources but a lot of them have to work to gain access to those resources. Even the worst projects tend to require a large amount of time put into them. When I think about what I was doing at their age...it's kind of embarrassing.