Registration Deadlines and Entry Fees
Your completed and signed family
entry form, with a check for the total amount due, must be postmarked no later
than Thursday, January 31, 2002. The
non-refundable entry fee is $10.00 for one student, $18.00 for two students,
or $25.00 for your entire family.
You can save a little money and help us plan better by mailing
your family entry form early. For forms postmarked
by Friday, November 30, 2001, the non-refundable entry fees are reduced to
the following: $8.00 for one student,
$15.00 for two students, and $20.00 for your entire family.
Mail your family entry form
with the total amount due to:
Science Fair Registration
7658 Salter Court
Temperance, MI 48182
Questions
If you have any questions or comments
regarding W.I.S.E. 2002, including the information in this instruction booklet,
please contact Bill Werner, Science Fair Director, by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone
at 734-847-3446.
INSTRUCTIONS
Objective
The objective
of W.I.S.E. 2002 is to provide a means by which you can gain scientific
knowledge and improve your scientific abilities from year
to year. The science fair is the culmination of your hard work—an opportunity
to share your knowledge with others and to learn from what other students
have done.
The method
used to accomplish this objective is a scoring booklet that is first used
by you to plan and execute your project and then used by your coach to score
your project. By using a scoring booklet
each year, you will be able to track your progress from year to year.
Although you
are not required to record information in all the appropriate sections of
your science fair workbook or to write a report or to be interviewed, the
more steps you do and the more comprehensively you do them, the better your
project will be and the higher the rating level of the Certificate of Achievement
you will receive at the science fair. Create
the best project you can this year and then continue to strive for a higher
score every year!
Note that
the rules for the ISEF (International Science and Engineering Fair) are different
from these. If you wish to participate in an ISEF event, you must comply
with those rules at that fair.
1. Select a coach.
·
Your coach
should have as many of the following characteristics as possible:
o
Able and willing
to coach you periodically while you are doing your project
o
Able and willing
to objectively evaluate and score your completed project
o
Available
to coach you and evaluate your projects consistently over several years
o
Currently
or formerly employed in a scientific capacity, including the teaching profession
·
Your coach
could be, but does not need to be, a parent or other family relative.
2. Select the topic
of your project.
Get some ideas for your project from
published materials and from the Internet. Think about your everyday world and the things that you like,
such as food, flowers, pets, dance, music, and sports. Science is everywhere you look. Let your imagination roam, and then select
a topic that you’re excited about and that will challenge your abilities.
Consider a project in any of the
following branches of science: biology
(including anatomy, botany, entomology, herpetology, ichthyology, ornithology,
and zoology), chemistry, earth science (including astronomy, ecology, geology,
meteorology, and oceanography), mathematics and computer science, physics,
and social science (including archeology, anthropology, and psychology).
3. Decide what type of project you want to do.
The types of projects you can do
include collections, models, and experiments dealing with science and mathematics. Commercial kits should not be used for any
type of project.
·
Collect biological or geological specimens and categorize them.
·
Plan and build a scientific model.. Consider not only models demonstrating the
principles of physics, but also models from biology, chemistry, earth science,
and mathematics.
·
Do an experiment. Think of a question or problem, write a prediction
or hypothesis, and set up a test that will help you answer your question.
As you conduct your experiment, record your results, including measurements
and observations. Then draw conclusions that answer your question, based on
the results of your experiment. Be certain to follow experimental design,
collect data, and draw some accurate conclusions based on the data.
4. Plan and execute
your project.
Use the scoring booklet for guidance. Record information under the appropriate section
of your workbook (a loose-leaf notebook binder). Note that the workbook sections named below
are identified with code letters in parentheses indicating what sections of
the workbook are suitable for what types of projects. The letter “C” indicates “collections,” the
letter “M” indicates “models,” and the letter “E” indicates “experiments.”
5. Write your
report, summarizing the information from your workbook.
6. Prepare your display with the information from your workbook.
·
The
maximum dimensions of the project are 48 inches wide, 30 inches deep, and
60 inches high. A tri-fold display works best.
·
Write
your name, address, and telephone number on the back of your display board.
If you wish, you may include photographs of yourself in any part of
your project. You may also include your name on your workbook and on your report.
·
You
may exhibit live animals provided their secure enclosure fits on the table
in front of the display board.
·
Place
bacteria and viruses in sealed containers.
·
Place
water or other fluids in watertight containers.
·
Design
any electrical display to use batteries since no electrical outlets are available
for projects.
·
Do not
display valuable items.
7. Ask your
coach to score your project before the science fair.
·
The project is
scored in four areas: workbook (the project itself), report, display, and
interview.
·
Your coach will
score the first three areas in the scoring booklet.
·
One or more judges
will score your interview at the science fair.
8. Register
and set up your project at the science fair.
·
To qualify for a Certificate of Achievement, turn in
your completed scoring booklet when registering, even if you are not going
to be interviewed.
·
Place
your workbook, your report, and all the materials and equipment that you are
displaying in front of your display board.
·
A project
will be disqualified if it::
o
Does
not have a freestanding display board
o
Has
an oversized display
o
Uses
an open flame in the display
o
Uses
flammable chemicals or explosive, toxic, or caustic substances in the display
o
Does
not use normal safety precautions for other chemicals in the display
9. Be interviewed.
·
The scheduled length of the optional interviews is fifteen
minutes for students in grades 7 through 12, ten minutes for students in grades
3 through 6, and five minutes for students in grades K through 2.
·
Parents may accompany students in grades K through 2 at the
interview but are not allowed to speak during the interview.
·
Your interview score is recorded on your scoring booklet by
the judge(s).
·
If you fail to appear for a scheduled interview, your
total project score will be severely penalized. Note that if you request an interview on the family entry form and
later decide that you do not want to be interviewed, or if you did not request an interview on the
family entry form and later decide that you do want to be interviewed, you
may change your decision by notifying W.I.S.E. in writing (including e-mail)
no later than January 31, 2002.
10. Participate
in the awards ceremony.
At the awards ceremony, each qualifying
student will receive a ribbon and a Certificate of Achievement. The scoring
booklet of your project will also be returned to you at this time. Neither
the score of your project nor the level of your certificate will be announced.
The following Certificates of Achievement will be awarded
based upon different scoring ranges for the three types of projects.
Each Certificate of Achievement is named after two scientists whose
biographies are included in the book The Scientific 100: A Ranking of the
Most Influential Scientists Past and Present, by John Simmons (ISBN 0-8065-1749-2). For example, a student scoring 300 points in
an experiment project would be awarded the level 5 certificate—the Liebig/Eddington
Award.
|
Level
|
Scoring
Range
|
Collections
|
Models
|
|
Scoring
Range
|
Experiments
|
|
1
|
Less than
80
|
de Broglie/Linnaeus
|
Bayliss/Dalton
|
|
Less than
140
|
Sherrington/Delbruck
|
|
2
|
80-124
|
Morgan/Ehrlich
|
Mendel/Kammerlingh Onnes
|
|
140-199
|
Bethe/Euclid
|
|
3
|
125-149
|
von Laue/Kirchhoff
|
Wegener/van Leeuwenhoek
|
|
200-239
|
von Neumann/Feynman
|
|
4
|
150-174
|
Mendeleev/Bardeen
|
Koch/Fischer
|
|
240-279
|
von Haller/Kekule
|
|
5
|
175-199
|
Huygens/Gauss
|
Harvey/Malpighi
|
|
280-319
|
Liebig/Eddington
|
|
6
|
200-224
|
Born/Euler
|
Hubble/Thomson
|
|
320-359
|
Lyell/de
Laplace
|
|
7
|
225-249
|
Curie/Herschel
|
Boltzmann/Planck
|
|
360-399
|
Brahe/de
Buffon
|
|
8
|
250-274
|
Dirac/Vesalius
|
Schrodinger/Rutherford
|
|
400-439
|
Pauling/Virchow
|
|
9
|
275-299
|
Bernard/Heisenberg
|
Faraday/Maxwell
|
|
440-479
|
Kepler/Copernicus
|
|
10
|
300 and
higher
|
Galileo/Lavoisier
|
Bohr/Pasteur
|
|
480 and
higher
|
Newton/Einstein
|
Technical Information About the Scoring Process
·
Each of the
four areas (workbook, report, display, and interview) has several scoring
criteria.
·
Each type
of project (collection, model, and experiment) has its own scoring criteria,
although many of the criteria are common to all three types of projects.
·
Each scoring
criterion is assigned a weighted rating factor according to its importance
to the project.
·
There are
a total of 200 rating factor units assigned to criteria for experiments and
125 rating factor units assigned to criteria for both collections and models.
·
Each criterion’s
rating factor is multiplied by 1, 2, 3, or 4 to indicate the student’s score
on that criterion, namely, fair, good, superior, or outstanding (rarely used).
·
Each criterion
that is either not done or is poorly done is scored zero.
·
For experiments,
the 200 rating factor units are assigned to give the following weight in the
total score: workbook (80 units = 40%), report (40 units = 20%), display (60
units = 30%), and interview (20 units = 10%).
·
For both collections
and models, the 125 rating factor units are assigned to give the following
weight in the total score: workbook (35 units = 28%), report (25 units = 20%),
display (45 units = 36%), and interview (20 units = 16%).
·
In the above chart,
the first number of the scoring range in level 2 is the total score of a project
that scores a “fair” rating in every item in the workbook and display
areas, but the student is not interviewed and does not write a report.
The first number of the scoring range in level 3 is the total score
of a project that scores a “fair” rating in every item in all four
areas—workbook, report, display, and interview.
The first number in the scoring range in level 8 is the total score
of a project that scores a “good” rating in every item in all four
areas. For example, a student
would score a total of 400 points in an experiment project if the project
scores a “good” rating on every item in all four areas.
W. I. S. E. 2002
