USMA’s Science Fair Awards Program – US Metric Association (Staging)

Each year, the U.S. Metric Association makes available metric award certificates to regional and state science fairs throughout the U.S.

The award is for the best use of the SI metric system in a science fair project. The science fairs involved are the regional and state science fairs affiliated with the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF).

The Intel ISEF is organized and directed by The Society for Science and the Public, Inc. of Washington, DC. Science for Society also publishes Science News. The International Fair is held each year in a different major city. The best overall projects at the Regional and State fairs are sent to participate in the International.

There are about 500 to 600 ISEF affiliated fairs each year. There are fairs using the USMA award in about 45 states each year as well as in the District of Columbia and a few U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico. In recent years, about 200 of these fairs have used the USMA award. Some of them request and award more than one certificate. That, plus the fact that some fairs allow students to participate as teams of two or three, means that sometimes more than one student per fair receives an award.

The Science for Society mails the awards materials, the Certificate plus a page of instructions and guidelines for the judges, to all affiliated fair directors. If the fair chooses to use the award, they usually arrange for some of their local judges to evaluate the projects for the USMA award.

Frequently fairs request USMA to provide USMA members to judge for the award. The USMA also gets occasional requests from USMA members who are interested in judging at a fair. The coordinator of the award program tries to match up volunteer judges with science fairs in their area when possible.

The coordinator of the Science Fair Award program for USMA is Mark Henschel. His email address is: mwhenschel1@gmail.com.

Volunteering to judge

If you’re a USMA member interested in judging a science fair, read how to judge for the USMA science fair award.

Judging criteria

Although written for USMA’s science fair judges, students and teachers might also be interested in reading the USMA science fair judging guide (a two-page PDF for ease of printing). It can be helpful in understanding how a science fair project will be judged for its metric use.

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