Sweet Briar College will host its annual Amherst County EXTEND Science Fair on Tuesday, April 15 in the Josey Dining Room at Prothro Commons. Judging will begin at 10 a.m. The program will conclude with a “show” by five students who are taking a quantitative and inorganic chemistry course. The SBC students will be doing demonstrations for the elementary- and middle-schoolers, starting at around 12:15 p.m.

Roughly 75 Amherst fifth- through eighth-graders will present science projects for judging. About 30 of Sweet Briar’s “top science students” will serve as judges, said chemistry professor Jill Granger, who started the science fair seven years ago and has directed it since.

Two Sweet Briar student leaders, Allison Bailey ’10 and Melaina Macone ’11, are co-leading the event under Granger’s direction. Bailey is responsible for organizing the Sweet Briar judges and scoring. Macone is taking charge of a group of fourth-graders who, in addition to observing the goings on, will participate in a mock judging process for the “People’s Choice Awards.”

The idea is to engage the fourth-graders by having them judge the science projects, Macone said, explaining in an e-mail how the awards will be chosen. “The 4th graders have been acquainted with what we are looking for in a science fair project (hypothesis, conclusion, etc.) through various handouts provided for their teachers.”

Their scores will be tallied to decide who will win three People’s Choices among the elementary school projects and three from among the middle school projects.

Granger provided Macone articles and books on community service projects and how science fairs aid in a child’s education, and she has made good use of them. “It is especially important that children at such a young age group be immersed with science through a fun, interesting activity such as a science fair,” Macone said.

Bailey has been busy, recruiting and training the judges, making schedules and revamping the evaluation system.

“Dr. Granger and I spent a lot of time re-working the judging rubric from last year, and we have come up with a great and easy-to-follow scoring sheet for all of the judges,” she said.

Each participant must present a poster that is judged for effectiveness in conveying essential components such as hypothesis, methodology and findings; demonstrating the students’ understanding of the research; and presentation of the material.

Judges also conduct interviews with participants, evaluating them on such measures as how well they explain their research, understanding of the science principles involved, and its relevance to real life or why they were interested in the scientific question.

With Granger, Bailey developed an Excel spreadsheet to automatically calculate the overall scores.

The elementary and middle-school students also have been working for months with their teachers and the gifted education resource teachers on their projects, Granger said, underscoring the collaboration between Sweet Briar and the Amherst schools.

“These teachers have really gone above and beyond in making time for this educational activity in their curriculum and the school administrators, in my opinion, are really doing their students a great service by supporting their efforts,” she said.

“In the world of high-stakes multiple-choice testing, making time for scientific inquiry has to be a philosophical priority. Sweet Briar is the happy host to the Amherst Public Schools’ endeavors and efforts.”

For more information about the Amherst County Extend Science Fair, please contact Jill Granger at granger@sbc.edu or 381-6166.