Judges Needed at the Austin Energy Regional Science Festival 2020

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Science Fest is a competition for students from 23 school districts and 12 counties who are advancing from their local schools. Junior (middle school) Division and Senior (high school) Division students submit their projects in one of 17 scientific categories, covering both Life and Physical Sciences as well as Math and Engineering. Judging is competitive and the top three winners in each category from both divisions advance to the state fair in San Antonio. The overall top six projects in the Senior Division, called "Best of Fair", advance directly to the international competition.

Because judging is competitive, we need subject matter experts to evaluate the projects. About 7-8 projects are assigned to each group of judges (typically consisting of 3 people). After a group has interviewed their assigned students, group members discuss the merit of each project and jointly determine the ranking. Seniors are judged in the morning, Juniors in the afternoon. It is a 2-4 hour commitment, depending on the amount of students in each category. (The Junior Division Chemistry, Engineering, and Physics categories tend to be rather large, for example, and have to be done in two rounds.) We offer orientation sessions in the weeks leading up to the fair.

Judging for next year's Junior/Senior fair will take place on Thursday, Feb 20, 2020 at the Palmer Event Center. Students will register and set up their projects on Wednesday, Feb 19, and projects will be available for previewing that night without students present. Links to the abstracts will be made available the week-end prior to the fair.

Elementary students are judged on Saturday, Feb 22, 2020; judging is not competitive and every project receives either a 1st, 2nd or 3rd place ribbon.

We also need general volunteers from Wednesday, Feb 19, to Saturday, Feb 22, to help with registration, project set-up, monitoring the students’ well-being and assisting with the awards ceremonies. You can register as either a judge or a volunteer by going to http://www.sciencefest.org/volunteers