Science Fair Director Points Students and Educators to Science Buddies

For more than fifteen years, this educator and science fair director has been using Science Buddies' resources with students and recommending the site to others.

A Valuable Resource for Science Fair

Judy Reeves, a middle school science teacher at St. Margaret Catholic School and director of the Louisiana Region V Science & Engineering Fair, has been pointing educators to Science Buddies as a science fair resource for more than fifteen years. "I was working as an assistant to the regional science fair director," she recalls. "We had a big box of fold-out pamphlets from Science Buddies that we would hand out."

As an educator and a science fair director, Judy has continued to be a proponent of both science fair and Science Buddies. The trick to getting younger students excited about science projects, she says, is to get them interested by making connections between science and everyday topics they know and care about. "Without science we wouldn't have blow dryers, the type of food we eat, the makeup you wear," Judy tells her students. "Someone did an experiment to find out about it."

When it comes to the engineering design process, Judy says students are often surprised at how accessible it is. Last year, she used the Paper Airplanes engineering lesson and had students send notes to one another with their planes. "The kids were so amazed at how the project lined up. They didn't think engineering was that. It helped them understand that engineering can be very simple. It doesn't always have to be major. Something like just changing the wing is a small engineering change that changes performance so much."

Above: Judy Reeves (middle) and student science fair participants.

Creating Interest in Middle School

As students move through their school years, Judy sees interest decline, something she attributes to less formal encouragement of science inquiry. "I'd say 1/4 of students in middle school are excited [about science projects] and less in high school because there isn't someone encouraging them to do it."

To get students inspired about hands-on science and independent science projects, Judy holds a week-long summer science camp for rising sixth-graders. Students in the sixth grade do science fair projects for the first time, and Judy cites the Topic Selection Wizard as a particularly useful tool.

"The TSW helps reign in the broad ideas they have and helps them identify things they can actually accomplish," she says, noting that roughly 70% of her students use a project they discover using the Topic Selection Wizard or browsing project ideas at Science Buddies.

A Valuable Resource for Educators

Science Buddies has continued to add new features and resources since Judy first started using the site. Judy uses Science Buddies for science fair resources, STEM career discovery, teaching the scientific method and engineering design process, and project finding. As a Google Classroom user, she also used the new Project Pathways tool last year to streamline the creation of a science project schedule for students. In addition, she had her 7th-grade students participate in the 2024 Engineering Challenge.

As a regional science fair director, Judy refers students and teachers at all grade levels to Science Buddies. "Science Buddies gives it to them step by step. This makes the process more attainable for teachers and students. There is less feeling of overwhelm."

For educators just getting started with science fair, Judy says the step-by-step resources at Science Buddies are invaluable. "Many teachers don't know where to begin. If it weren't for Science Buddies, I don't know where they would get these resources."

Thank you to Judy for sharing this story with Science Buddies.