Award Planning

Your new Sponsored Awards, Step 1/2: Planning

So you'd like to sponsor an award for students whose projects apply to your organization. Great! This is the first step: planning your awards. Here is what you need to do.

Your organization assigns a specific individual to coordinate your awards. This person is the primary contact between the organization and the science fair, in case we have questions about your awards. If you like, you can include the address of your web site.

You and your organization decide the following:

A one-sentence description for the criteria for your awards. In other words, what will your judges be looking for when they review students’ exhibits? What would merit a student winning your organization’s award? Examples:

• “The American Chemical Society Awards are awarded to the students displaying the best knowledge and use of chemistry.”

• “The Society for In Vitro Biology award is given to the most outstanding 11th grade exhibit using the techniques of plant or animal in vitro biology or tissue culture.”

The categories of awards to present. Examples: Outstanding Achievement, First Place, Second Place, Honorable Mention, etc. Note: you may have 1, 2, or 3 categories of awards.

The quantity of each award category. Examples: one First Place, two Second Places, or one Outstanding Achievement. You may have as many awards in each category as you wish.

The recipients of each award category. Who can win this award? Seniors? Juniors? Teachers?

The cash prizes for each award category. Examples: $50 for each Outstanding Achievement, $30 for each First Place, or $10 for each Honorable Mention. You are not required to give a cash prize at all.

How the student will receive the cash prize. You have two choices here.

• You may write a check to EISEF for the total amount of all your prizes and we will take care of writing individual checks to the winners on fair day.

• You may write your own checks on fair day.

Other prizes for each award category. Examples: a certificate, calculator, gift certificate, day planner, plaque, medallion, trophy, t-shirt, pin, pencil and pen set, one-year membership etc. Nearly all organizations present a certificate to their winners, and they nearly always have places for the student’s name. If EISEF is to present your prizes on Fair Day or write the winners’ names on your certificates, you need to send the prizes and the certificates (including at least two extras) to this address by March 2, 2025:

Heather Scoville

EISEF Awards Committee

2604 G Ave

Ladora, IA 52251

How the student’s name gets on their winner’s certificate. You have choices here.

• You will send EISEF the correct quantity of certificates, plus two, at least two weeks before the fair (by March 2, 2025). They will already be signed by your organization’s officers, if there are places on the form to do so. On fair day, EISEF will print the winners' names on their certificates.

• You will not be giving the winners a certificate.

• Your designated judge will be responsible for writing the winners’ names on the certificates.

You need to decide how many judges you will need. The number of judges you’ll need on fair day depends on the recipients of your awards. In 2024 we had 154 exhibits in total. You’ll judge from 9:30 AM to 2:00 PM; the Awards team NEEDS YOUR WINNERS' NAMES BY 2:00 PM in order to be ready for the Awards Ceremony. To be fair to your organization and to the students, you should count on each judge evaluating at most 8 exhibits per hour (that’s 7½ minutes per exhibit).

So we strongly recommend you recruit five or more judges, depending on your criteria and the number of exhibits that meet that criteria. On fair day, you’ll divide up the exhibits among the judges, all go off and evaluate the ones you have, rank them in your own list, and see each other’s top exhibits. Then you can assign the categories to each of your winners.

Please note that it is strictly prohibited for judges to distribute anything directly to the EISEF participants during participation in the Fair. This includes pamphlets, literature, contact information, etc. If there is a particular participant you would like to talk further with about their project or future project interests, please contact EISEF for contact via the participant’s adult sponsor. Violation of this policy may result in further action by EISEF, including but not limited to expulsion from judging and immediate removal at the discretion of EISEF officials.

The Exhibit List For Awards lists all the projects that will be at the Fair, with their titles and descriptions. Just before the Fair you can check that page and select the projects best suited for your awards.

And last, who will present your awards to your winners? The Awards Ceremony begins at 7:00 PM. You have two choices.

• Someone from your organization will present your awards to the winners.

• The EISEF Master of Ceremonies will present your awards to your winners.

So by the time you’ve finished making these decisions, you will come up with a list that is something like this:

• Point of contact:

  • Saint Nicholas, Elf-in-Chief

  • Nicholarium Nativity Enterprises

  • 7 Santa Claus Lane

  • Nicholarium, North Pole  N90°

  • nicholas.fairy@nicholarium.jc

  • http://www.nicholarium.jc/sciencefair.htm

• Our awards go to the best projects in any of these areas:

  • reindeer husbandry

  • arctic construction

  • remote observation

• Our awards and prizes are as follows:

  • 1–Senior Division Award, presented to a Senior project, consisting of $50, a medallion, and a certificate

  • 2–Junior Division Awards, presented to a Junior project, consisting of $25 and a certificate

  • 2–Honorable Mention Awards, presented to Any project, consisting of a certificate

• Total cash prizes: $100. We will send EISEF a check before the fair, and they will write three checks on fair day for us.

• We will send EISEF seven certificates and $100 by March 2, 2025, two weeks before the fair, and they will write the winner’s names on the certificates on fair day for us.

• We will have 3 wise men present at the fair on March 15, 2025 to judge exhibits.

• We will present our awards to our winners.

Still with us? Great! Now that you have the important decisions made, you’ll need to register your organization with the Eastern Iowa Science and Engineering Fair.