Suggestions for putting together a cross-cultural team

Not all parents at Castro have the time or experience to help their kids put together a science fair project. If you’re family is inclined to participate, consider involving other students from your child’s class. The whole Science Fair experience can be more fun and more rewarding for all involved. Here is a suggested outline to make the team project successful.

1. Plan your team at least one month in advance

a. Have a lead parent

b. Make a team. It is fun to work with the usual friends, but Castro promotes an all inclusive group work model in the class. Extend this to Science Fair. Consider students ideally at least two Spanish speakers and two English speakers (ask your teacher for help to select)

c. Confirm if the other parents can help (this science time can be in English, even if the other parents only speak Spanish they come and listen and help keep the kids engaged)

d. Sign up your team for the science fair, follow instructions in the science fair packet.

2. Have your team meet after class one day a week for ½ hour – 45 minutes (or as much as your team agrees to meet), use outside lunch tables or ask your teacher for the classroom (bringing snacks is a plus)

3. First meeting: introduce the kids to the scientific method and the fun of science fair

a. Simple scientific method is: Have a question, do research, make a guess on an answer (hypothesis), test with an experiment, check your results against your guess, and present your conclusion.

b. Or another way:

My science fair project is about__.

I wanted to find out __.

I guessed __.

I tested it by___.

My guess was___.

So I learned___.

c. Ask if there is anything they want to learn about or explore

4. Second meeting: bring the kids 3 – 4 experiments to vote on. These can be based on what they are interested in from the first meeting or your own suggestions. Explain each experiment and have the kids vote.

a. Google for grade level science fair projects, ask the teacher or see the list below for ideas from previous years.

5. Third meeting (or more): Do prep, research and experiments with the kids.

a. Have the kids participate and do as much of it themselves as they can. They can do drawings and write words about the stages. Bring materials or ask teachers for some. You can use photos. Think and talk about what you want on the final poster board for the fair.

b. If your experiments take time, plan them out over several of your meetings. (ie. plant plants one week, measure growth the next, more measuring and observation the third. If your project takes this kind of time, plan ahead and do your experiment pick the first week.)

c. If your project takes small observations along the way, you could have your team do them at drop off and do the bigger drawings at the afterschool time.

6. Last meeting: Have your team put all the information on the posterboard and turn in to your teacher for the fair. Use the kids creations, but feel free to add printed explanations if you need/want.

7. Go to the fair to see all the great projects!

Dara Tynefield