The purpose of this study was to identify the role that Costa Rican educational leaders play in implementing the National Program of Science and Technology Fairs (Programa Nacional de Ferias de Ciencia y Tecnologia [PRONAFECYT]) initiative. The study provides an examination of leadership practices, instructional strategies, and professional…

Science fair is an environment where students present their scientific research projects. Opinions of science teachers who participated as a mentor in science fair are important for determining of the science fair quality and its contribution of science education. The aim of study was to determine science teachers' views about the science fair at…

Experiments are essential for both doing science and learning science. The aim of the German youth science fair, "Jugend forscht," is to encourage scientific thinking and inquiry methods such as experimentation. Based on 57 interviews with participants of the competition, this study summarises students' conceptions and steps of learning…

Physical Science Day at The University of Texas--Pan American (UTPA), in collaboration with the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District, has been designed, developed and implemented to address an identified fundamental shortcoming in our educational process within this primarily (90+%) Hispanic serving border region. Physical Science Day…

The purpose of this study was to understand the effects of educational leadership on student participation in the National Program of Science and Technology Fairs (Programa Nacional de Ferias de Ciencia y Tecnologia [PRONAFECYT]) in the primary schools of Costa Rica. The study identified the role that governmental, community, and school site…

The impact of globalization and technological advances created a global economic environment in which emerging countries can compete with traditionally economically dominant countries on an increasingly level playing field. Emerging countries can advance their economy through the attraction of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) more quickly than by…

This study applied four frameworks from academic literature in the areas of leadership, change process, 21st-century skills, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) project-based learning (PBL) to understand the various factors providing for success and participation of a school in the national science fair initiative (Programa…

After many years of elementary science fairs, the time had come to redesign their family science event model. The displays were always well thought-out, the investigations interesting, and the science fair was always well attended. However, as the author listened to the conversations of the students as they put together their displays and the…

This research is about using two different instruction models, "theory course combined with sample introduction" and "theory course combined with case method teaching", to instruct elementary teachers on how to guide the science fair product in two courses (16 and 12 teachers in each class) and observe their guiding tactics after the instructed…

We have developed the traditional science fair format into an ocean science fair model that promoted the integration of Western science and Alaska Native traditional knowledge in student projects focused on the ocean, aquatic environments, and climate change. The typical science fair judging criteria for the validity and presentation of the…

The idea of establishing Science High Schools in Turkey was discussed in a multilateral project at the beginning of 1963. The Ministry of National Education (MoNE), Ford Foundation, Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara University, and International Development Agency (AID) participated in this project to establish these schools. In…

This study was conducted to develop a new scale for measuring teachers' attitude towards science fair. Teacher Attitude Scale towards Science Fair (TASSF) is an inventory made up of 19 items and five dimensions. The study included such stages as literature review, the preparation of the item pool and the reliability and validity analysis. First of…

This study aimed at examining the predictors of quality of science fair (SF) projects in the light of pre-service teachers' evaluation of SF rubric' domains. These projects were selected by judges in A city for the A Regional Exhibition of Science and Mathematics Project Study for Primary School Students: The SF projects were evaluated by thirty…

Although anxiety is a significant emotional element of formal school science, little is known about how anxiety is originated and managed in the context of science fairs. The purpose of the present study was to investigate how a group of students in Grades 7 to 12 discursively (re)produce anxiety and its management from the perspective of their…

In this paper, we report on the experiences of three 9th-grade South African students (13-14 years) in doing open science investigation projects for a science expo. A particular focus of this study was the manner in which these students merge the world of school science with their social world to create a hybrid space by appropriating knowledge…