From Science Fair to Research Expo and Competitions
The science fair competition as it is known today dates back to 1928 when the American Institute of New York City hosted the first research competition at the American Museum of Natural History (McComas, 2011). From 1921 the Society for Science began by providing research publications to inform the public but moved quickly to offering science education competitions. Today, this organization is sponsor to the globally recognized ISEF, the International Science and Engineering Fair (societyforscience.org, 2022). Through their yearly competition, ISEF brings students from around the world to share their research or engineering projects. Using the scientific method, students present data to validate their findings; engineering projects demonstrate innovation and solution to real world problems. From retinal fatigue to snails and the effects of climate change, the ISEF competition allows students to mimic the work of scientists by using their own curiosity to identify a problem, collect the data and share the results of their research findings (societyforscience.org, 2022).
Science competitions have expanded to include Science Olympiad, Rube Goldberg for engineering (Rube Goldberg, 2022), and Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS) which includes presentation on original research via a paper and presentation (Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, 2022). The aim of these competitions is to expose students to project based learning through hands-on investigations. These schoolwide projects are often excellent venues for students to develop cross-categorical skills. Teachers from various disciplines often guide students through the problem solving and strategy as they design, develop and implement their projects.
Project based and independent research competitions like these are often omitted from the curricular offerings of underrepresented students of African descent or Latinx heritage, excluding them from rich science experiences and learning opportunities (Sleeter,2005; Moore, et. Al, 2018). Underperforming schools are often limited to a curriculum driven by reading and math devoid of science and STEM opportunities (Sleeter, 2005) This is troubling given that STEM careers require rigorous academic prerequisite training in high school (Schmidt & Kelter, 2017). Exclusion to these educational opportunities result in lack of preparedness for these students resulting in barriers to the STEM pipeline.
Social Justice Education seeks to redress the structures of domination and subordination present across institutions and found in curriculum (Adams & Love, 2009; Kavanagh & Danielson, 2020). Social justice educators reject deficit explanations that lay the blame of low achievement at the feet of individuals and communities and instead questions the systemic structures that have perpetuated the inequities in educational achievement (Sleeter, 2005). This is the reason the UNESCO Education 2030 (“Education 2030”, 2015) initiative calls for the development of educational policies to ensure that all citizens have access to quality and equitable education. In order to redress the underrepresentation of those of African descent and Latinx heritage educational policies based on economics must be demolished.