The history
You’re not imagining this, but it wasn’t this way 18 years ago.
To see what happened, check out our 2000-2009 Statistics and 2010-2019 Statistics pages, in particular the table “Exhibit counts by year & county” on each. The tables show how many exhibits each county sent to EISEF each year. If you click on a column header, you’ll sort (or reverse sort) the whole table based on that column. Reverse sort on “2000″, and you can see that during the years 2000–2006 Linn County sent the most exhibits to EISEF; then the county’s numbers steadily fell until 2010, and settled near 0 after that.
What changed?
In 2000–2006 several Linn County schools had one or more “spark-plug” teachers, who were passionate about science fair participation. Spark-plugs do things like:
- encourage — or require — their students to participate in science fair;
- lobby the school board and local parents for support;
- run a science fair in their school;
- spread their passion to other teachers, thus multiplying their impact.
After 2006 the Linn County spark-plugs gradually retired or moved away. Without their passion, their acolytes and the school boards lost interest. The students no longer had the drive or support to participate. From 2011, Linn County exhibits at EISEF have been one-offs:
- A passionate student persuades a teacher to be their adult sponsor.
- Or a parent sponsors their child’s project, for one year or two.
- In neither case does this leave a lasting impression on the school’s teachers or students.
What’s more, the Cedar Rapids high schools now encourage students to take Advanced Placement (AP) classes or college classes. These laudable classes absorb a lot of time and energy that the students might otherwise devote to science fair projects.
Since then, EISEF’s exhibit total has held steady, at around 200 each year, because new spark-plug teachers have appeared in other counties, such as Lee, Van Buren, and sometimes Jefferson.
How to reverse the decline
EISEF can’t do it.
And not for lack of trying. Over the years we’ve met with school faculties and individual teachers. We’ve given them guidance and support: how to sponsor student projects, how to run a science fair in the school, how to bring exhibits to EISEF. The results have been a few one-off exhibits, but no lasting science fair activity at the school.
The school board can’t do it.
11 years ago, the Cedar Rapids Community School District decided to start a city-wide science fair as part of a STEM initiative, and they asked for EISEF’s help. Many meetings were held; EISEF board member Leland Freie attended most of them; other board members gave other support. Nothing came of all this activity — no Cedar Rapids Science Fair, no uptick in CR exhibits at EISEF.
It takes spark-plug teachers …
EISEF’s experience shows that only passionate teachers will bring students to science fair year after year. Teachers who believe it’s worth their effort to:
- nudge the students to start projects,
- supervise those projects for months,
- fill out all the paperwork to bring those project to EISEF, or any science fair.
… and that’s not always enough.
Even spark-plug teachers can fizzle, if their students are too busy. Students face pressure to join lots of activities, so they can polish their college applications or just keep busy. Busy students often lack the time, energy, and focus that science fair projects demand. And larger towns and school districts, like Cedar Rapids, have so many more activities to distract the students.
Bottom line
If you think you have a formula to:
- find or make these spark-plug teachers and attract them to Cedar Rapids, and
- inspire their students to participate in science fair in the face of many distractions,
then by all means try it. Better yet, attend an EISEF Board meeting or two, share your formula with us, and work with us to implement it.