DAY OF SCHEDULE - THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2009
(Reminder, this is a FORMAL UNIFORM DAY for all participants)

8:00-8:48: Honors Biology and Honors Chemistry set-up

8:52-9:36: Honors Chemistry and Honors Physics set-up

9:40-10:24: Honors Environmental Science set-up

10:30-11:00: Science faculty meets with judges to brief them on scoring criteria and project locations

11:00-12:00: Judges have lunch and preview projects

11:37-11:57: All student participants eat first lunch

12:00-2:15: All student participants proceed to gym; Judges view student presentations

6:00-7:20: Parents, teachers and guests view projects and vote for special prizes!

7:30-8:00: Awards Ceremony


The Science Fair Program requires:

1. All students taking an Honors level science course are required to complete a science fair project. Students in other science courses may also participate in the science fair program on a voluntary basis.
   
   
2. Each student can choose to do an individual project or a team project with a maximum of two individuals.
   
   
3. Students taking two Honors science courses are required to finish either one individual project which can be applied to both disciplines or two team projects.

The following are the due dates for the 2008-2009 Science Fair. (Individual science teachers may choose to adjust some due dates as needed.)

Science Fair Time Table

(All actions are to be performed by students unless otherwise indicated.)

Wednesday, 9/3/08: Science Fair Orientation - all Honors Science students must attend.

9/3/08 - 9/22/08: Acquire Science Fair logbook (only bound notebooks are acceptable). Begin background research. Dialogue with your science teacher about proposed topic. Use the Resources guide at www.scifair.com to link to many useful sources. Document all research in the Science Fair logbook.

Monday, 9/22/08: First Logbook check. Submit Science Fair logbook and a tentative Research plan (approx. 700 words or 1-2 pages typewritten): includes Literature Review, Hypothesis, tentative Materials List and Procedure, and Bibliography. Bibliography must contain at least 5 reliable sources, 3 of which must be written resources (not websites).

9/22/08 - 9/30/08: Teacher reviews Research plan and Science Fair logbook and suggests improvements if needed.

Tuesday, 9/30/08: Submit final Research Plan and Forms 1A, 1B, and Adult Sponsor form to science teacher to be sent to the Science Fair Committee (SFC) for review. The final Research Plan will be 15% of your first quarter grade.

10/1/08 - 11/5/08: Gather materials and do preliminary tests. Begin experimentation upon teacher approval. Topics needing SFC approval (i.e. human subjects, vertebrate experiments, biohazards, hazardous materials etc.) must await approval before beginning actual experimentation.

Wednesday, 11/5/08: Second logbook check. Science teacher will check Science Fair logbook for progress. First set of experiments must be done or ongoing.

Monday, 11/24/08: Draft of Research paper is due – minimum of 5 pages typed – includes Literature Review, Materials and Methods, Data from 1st round of experimentation with initial findings summarized. This will be graded as part of the 2nd quarter.

Wednesday, 12/10/08: Third logbook check. Students must have begun or submit a timetable for second round of experimentation.

Friday, 1/9/09: Updated research paper is due. Data from 2nd round of experimentation incorporated. Conclusion/findings from both rounds summarized. The updated Research Paper will be 15% of your 2nd quarter grade.

1/26/09 - 2/6/09: Put together tentative Display board upon teacher approval. NOTE: Please do not paste parts permanently yet as your teacher may suggest some improvements to the display.

Monday, 2/9/08: Science Fair Debriefing. All participating students must attend.

2/10/08 - 2/13/08: Present Display board and project summaries to class to practice for judging. This is a 5 to 7 minute presentation of your project summarizing the hypothesis, procedure followed, results, conclusion and relevance of your research. The finalized Research paper is also due at this time. Both the Display board and the finalized research paper will be 20% of the 3rd quarter grade.

Friday, 2/13/09: Finalized list of students participating in Science Fair is due. Students unable to present project in class before this date may NOT be allowed to participate in the Science fair.

Tuesday, 2/24/09: Final Display board is due for students entering the science fair.

Thursday, 2/26/09: Lowell Catholic High School Science Fair*

Saturday, 3/15/09: Regional Science Fair in Somerville, MA

4/30/09 - 5/2/09: Massachusetts State Science Fair (MIT Campus)

*All winners from the LCHS Science Fair must be willing to attend the Regional and State Fair if invited. Participation in the regional and state fairs may require additional preparation, but is well worth the time and effort.

Looking ahead to a great year! Please contact the science department chair if you have any other question regarding this memo. Mrs. Klinzing may be contacted via e-mail.

Here are two useful websites that will help you get started and support your efforts throughout this year:

www.scifair.com

www.sciencebuddies.org