Intel International Science and Engineering Fair

Seed Magazine sent two intrepid reporters to Albuquerque to cover this year's Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (you may remember those under the old name of "Westinghouse"). They are busy filing their reports and you can find them all on the special scienceblogs Intel ISEF blog.

We never had science fairs in Yugoslavia - the science competitions were all in a paper-and-pencil style (like Math Olympiad), nothing to make or do, just theory and solving problems. I usually did better in math and English (as ESL) than in physics, chemistry and biology championships. But my daughter did participate in a science fair a couple of years ago and I am sure happy science fairs exist - if not, someone should invent them.

More like this

Ah, science fairs. To the left, observe my colleague, fellow Seed-ster Lee Billings, feeling the science fair glow at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Intel ISEF is the world's largest and most acclaimed gathering of pre-college-age scientists.…
If you follow @ScienceBlogs on Twitter, you may have seen a cryptic tweet yesterday, just saying: ScienceBlogs will soon be making a very exciting announcement - so stay tuned! SciBlings (who by then knew what the news was going to be, but were asked to keep it under the wraps until the official…
Everybody and their siblings have been linking to this Minute Physics video, an "open letter" to President Obama complaining about the way that most high school and even intro college physics classes don't teach anything remotely modern: I'm not entirely sure where the date of 1865 comes from, but…
"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught." -Oscar Wilde As many of you know, last weekend I launched a suggestion box here on the site, and I've been overwhelmed by the response: about fifty of you have sent something in…

I was working with two students in my lab on projects that ended up going to this science fair. We never really had that sort of thing when I was at school (in the UK), science fairs were as you describe - like voluntary exams. I wish I'd had that kind of opportunity and I'm hoping that our two students have a great time. I almost wish that I could have gone.
Anyway, thanks for reminding me that it was going on this week.