Science fair is cool and all but it shouldn’t be such a big part of the school advanced curriculum, this is because time and money is a constraint for many people.

I believe that science fair shouldn’t have to be competitive and it should be optional, especially for people that have other activities to complete.

Many people have other obligations that they have to complete such as sports or other advanced classes that take up a lot of time that shouldn’t have to be spent on doing six different tests for the same project.

Science fair also puts pressure on the student to complete deadlines like the abstract and the board, these stress factors aren’t helping students academically.

Making the science fair competitive makes the whole ordeal very unappealing to many students don’t complete everything due to the fear of having to compete. I know I personally have a bit of “stage fright” and don’t like to get up in front of crowds to talk about anything.

Many people argue that the science fair is a learning experience that translate directly to the real world. But what about people that won’t be going into any kind of science field. There isn’t a way to put “how does white sand improve water quality” into a marketing workplace or into the cooking industry.

Many science fair projects require extra meetings after school that take up additional time that might have been spent with family. Most people like to spend time with family after school or with friends, science fair might be an obligation that will get in the way of this.

 I believe that if we make the science fair optional to students there will be some that compete for the scholarship aspect and some that don’t because they won’t have the time to complete the science fair in their spare time.

Teachers could also make the science fair extra credit instead of many grades that go into the six weeks average that pull down many students grade point average and six weeks average.

This is why I believe that science fair should be less significant in the grand scheme of things, students should be able to choose if they will be doing the science fair.