Newmont
Donate Now

Our Top Tips for Awesome Science Fair Project Displays

Whew! You have done all of the hard work of finishing up your Science & Engineering Fair project – congratulations! I’m sure you learned a ton. Now is your chance to celebrate and share all that you learned with your peers. No matter how your project turned out, you should be VERY proud of all that you learned along the way. Here are some good tips for putting it all together for your display.

For a FREE example Experimental Project Board Layout, take a look at Exercise 6.2 of the Make Science Fair Fun® workbook.

References

  • Each project should reference at least one source of information.
  • If you used more than one source, then give a reference for each sources. Sources can be videos, images, webpage text, conversations and books.
  • If you copied sections of a published project, then you must provide a reference to the section that you copied. You can write “Copied from …”. If you copy other people’s material (words, images, etc.) on your board and don’t give a reference, then that is called plagiarism. Plagiarism is illegal.
  • It is okay if you follow a published project found on the Internet or in a book. But, try to add your own ideas to the project. Use your creativity and problem solving skills. These skills are some of the most important skills you can develop during your project.

Project Board

  • The project board content should flow from top to bottom and left to right.
  • Be sure that you can explain everything that you put on your project board.
  • Consider printing out your section headings. Use at least a 70-point font.
  • If your computer skills are not speedy, then simply hand-write the content for your board. You can also hand-draw tables & graphs.
  • Use as many drawings, figures, photos, and graphs as you can. They should show what you did and what your results were.
  • Do not include too much text. Someone should be able to read and understand your project board in less than 10 minutes. They should not need your help to understand what you did.
  • All projects should include at least a Title, Introduction, and Bibliography (or References).
  • Experimental Projects should also include the following sections: Question, Hypothesis (or Prediction), Background, Experimental Set-up, Experimental Procedure, Results, and Conclusions.
  • Be aware of limits on the project board size- review your fair’s rules.

Models

  • Experimental or model items are strongly encouraged.
  • Be aware of restricted materials at your display – review your fair’s rules.

Notebook

  • Use a notebook to plan and take notes throughout your project.
  • If your notebook contains a lot of information, you might want to use page markers to organize your notebook. You should title the sections (e.g. Brainstorming, Data Collection, 1st Experiment, 2nd Experiment, etc.)
© 2022 STEM World Publishing, Public Benefit Corporation, with permission.
more posts: