Tapping the Social Potential of Science Fairs
September 9, 2025
K–12 schools play a vital role in shaping how people engage with science across their lives, an Education Week report declares, noting that one way to foster engagement is to provide students with hands-on science experiences. In Issues, Frederick Grinnell argues that science fairs can help—but must be reinvented. They should be noncompetitive, he writes, allowing students to be evaluated on their understanding of scientific practices rather than on getting the “right” answer. This approach “can provide a wide range of students with a broad appreciation of where scientific knowledge comes from and how it is used in the twenty-first century world.”