General
Time Commitment
Each fair in our system has a single day of interviews, you will receive specific hours when you are assigned to a category and division by the fair. Watch for this email 2-3 weeks before the fair date. Do add the fair to your calendar when you first register as a judge.
Post Fair
Every category judge is asked to complete Student Comments which are emailed to the adult sponsor. For many students this is the only award they receive. Some Head Judges gather written comments and enter it themselves, but having multiple judges comment gives a bigger impact.
Conflict of interest
For our fair system, we define this as having a personal relationship with the student or parent of the student on a project you are judging. This means parents who want to judge need to list the category their child is competing in and not volunteer for it. Parents are not to register as finalist judges as their child may be in that judging round.
Project mentors also need to avoid judging in the category of any of their mentees. Choosing a different division or judging at another fair are both good options.
Judge Types
Category Judges
Student projects are entered into either of two Divisions, based upon grade level: 1) High School Division (grades 9 – 12); and, 2) Middle School Division (grades 5 – 8). These two Divisions are judged separately. Within each Division the projects are classified and judged in Technical Categories. Category Judges are assigned based on their preferences and experience. Category judges work with a judging team to reach decisions. View the high school and middle school categories lists.
Special Awards Judges
Special Awards are bestowed on projects by a wide range of professional societies and organizations. While the requirements differ for each of these Special Awards, Special Awards Judges are needed to determine the winners. Judges either belong to the organization sponsoring the award, or are matched to a national award. In smaller fairs, category groups also select special award winners.
Head Judges
Head judges are assigned by the judge coordinator. In addition to normal judge duties, they facilitate the category or special award group and enter final results online.
Finalist Judges
Once the winners in each Category are determined, a panel of Finalist Judges reviews the winning projects in all categories and selects “Best of Fair” winners in both Divisions. High school Best of Fair awardees will participate in the International Science and Engineering Fair held later in the spring. The finalist judging panel needs representation from each of the categories. Finalist Judges are often Head Category Judges. Being a Finalist Judge requires extra time and effort beyond that needed to serve as a Category Judge.
Fair Types
Hybrid Fair
A Hybrid fair requires Judges score projects based on submitted slide decks prior to the fair day. These are made available at least a week prior to the fair date. Depending on the level of complexity of a project scoring can take from 5-30 minutes. On the fair day, judges interview the students at the event location and see their poster. They can then adjust scores and meet with their judge group for final deliberation.
In-person Fair
This is the traditional science fair experience, with judges scoring posters, interviewing students and deliberating in person. It is highly recommended that judges review project materials, including the research plan, prior to the fair.
Virtual Fairs
With our virtual fairs, all judging happens online with students providing slides and videos. Scoring of project materials is self paced during the week prior to a fair. All members of a category judge group review all virtual entries in their assigned category. The fair day itself will include interviewing students with your category judge group via Zoom followed by deliberation to award places and nominations for Best of Fair.
Our system allows a fair to switch to virtual in case of inclement weather.
Fair Size
Small 15-50 projects
Small fairs try to make category groups of 10-15 projects, this means combining multiple categories into Physical, Life, or Engineering groups. Other combinations also exist. This is why your assignment may differ from your preferred categories. With a small fair, category groups also may be tasked with selecting special award winners.
Medium 50-100 projects
Medium sized fairs may combine categories when there are less than 10 projects in a specific category. Depending on the fair, judges are either asked to judge this combination as one group or keep decisions separate per original category.
Large over 100 projects
The larger the fair, the less likely categories will be combined. However there is still a chance for tiny categories which means judges can be assigned to additional categories or awards. Additional awards do not require scoring in advance of the fair and are based on project materials and interviews.
NWSE
The state fair likes to make best use of all its volunteers. This means having judge groups also interview other students so that every child has multiple positive interactions with adults. This allows for those assigned to smaller categories to talk to other students in related categories.
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