Planning your school's science fair? Whether you're new to the process or seeking a more organized approach, we've crafted the following documents to guide you through every step of hosting a successful science fair. These documents complement each other seamlessly and provide a variety of options that can be customized to fit your school's unique event.

• A Guide to Planning a Science Fair (pdf) This step-by-step guide walks you through every step of planning your school science fair—from setting goals for the fair to recruiting and training volunteers and judges to announcing the winners. The companion judging documents are also referenced throughout and are available for download below.
• Judging Guide (pdf) This guide includes an introduction to the teacher, as well as thorough instructions to print out for the judges' training on the day of the fair. Features include grade-level expectations, responsibilities, and scoring guidelines. This guide will also prepare them for using the Judging Scorecards below. After reviewing the descriptions below, select and print the scorecard that you feel is most appropriate for your students.
• Judging Scorecard (pdf) This scorecard assumes students understand dependent, independent, and controlled variables. If this scorecard is the appropriate target for your fair, please print and hand out copies to the judges on the day of the fair.
• Judging Scorecard: Engineering (pdf) This scorecard is designed to enable the scoring of projects that follow the Engineering Design Process. If this scorecard is the appropriate target for some participants at your fair, please print and hand out copies to the judges on the day of the fair.
• Judging Scorecard: Basic (pdf) This scorecard assumes students understand the concept of a fair test but do not have knowledge of dependent, independent, and controlled variables. If this scorecard is the appropriate target for your fair, please print and hand out copies to the judges on the day of the fair.
• Judging Scorecard: Elementary (pdf) This scorecard makes a few assumptions about student knowledge. They should be able to follow the basic steps of an experiment and make observations to answer a question. Advanced students will be able to make measurements. If this scorecard is the appropriate target for your fair, please print and hand out copies to the judges on the day of the fair.
• Project Tracking Spreadsheet Sample (xls) This spreadsheet includes a sample and a template that can be modified to track your students' projects from registration through the judging process.
• Science Fair Certificate Sample (Word doc) This is a sample template of a Science Fair award certificate.
• Best Practices for Growing City or County-level Science Fair Participation