Find your passion for Science with Science Fairs

Tesca Fitzgerald is an award winning young scientist who helped us create the sample project for the Google Science Fair.

I hope that you're having a great time either starting or considering a science fair project for the Google Science Fair. Personally, I love how a science fair project allows me to innovate and experiment in a topic of my choice. Instructors in school will define the kind of work that you must complete for the term, but when you participate in a science fair, you're in the driver's seat. You decide the topic; you discover through experimentation; and you dig through the data to understand the meaning of the experimental results. I have been involved in science competitions for the past five years, and I really love the opportunity they give me to explore and refine my interests.

Before competing in science fairs, I knew I wanted to study computer science. It was only after working through several science fair projects that I realized my enthusiasm for developing artificial intelligence software. My continual involvement with science competitions helped me to discover and hone my interests, as I explored many topics within computer science and artificial intelligence software development. Now I have a head start on college because I already know what I want to study, what universities match my interests, and what scholarships I should be seeking.

The fact that this science fair is based entirely online makes it much easier to complete a project. I've known potential science fair participants who really wanted to attend a fair, but due to either the timing the location, couldn't do so. I knew another participant who, due to the fact that he couldn’t make it to his preferred fair, had to compete in a fair half-way across the state. Google's online science fair opens the opportunity to people all over the world with Internet access. And even if you don’t have your own computer, you can work on your project at your local public library.

When developing the sample for the Google site, I developed an outline of the whole project, then worked on each of the smaller sections one by one. By breaking the project up into smaller parts, I found that I could make meaningful progress on it each day. The word count will force you to consolidate your thoughts into core ideas. I’d also graphs and visual aids to your Google Science Fair project to help explain your experiment.

What areas of science do you really enjoy? If you were to start a science project, what would it be? Would it be a chemistry project? Or maybe a biology project? Experimenting in a scientific field can be fun and really interesting. Working on the Google Science Fair project was a great experience for me, and I hope that you have an awesome time working on your science fair project and discovering your passions.

Tesca Fitzgerald