Hi Swan Families,

We hope you are getting excited about our Virtual Science Fair scheduled for Wednesday, May 19th (Grades K-2) and Thursday, May 20th (Grades 3-5)!  We wanted to provide you with some more information about our 2021 Virtual Fair.

First, we’ve prepared a packet with all of the information about this year’s virtual science fair.  The packet includes information on choosing your research question, planning and executing your experiment, and sharing your work. You can access that packet HERE.

Since this year’s fair will be all virtual, students have an option to make a video of their findings or record a google slides presentation.  To make things easier, we created a Google slides template that students can edit and use to present projects. You can access the slides template HERE. Note: you’ll need to save a copy of the google slides before you can make changes.

Need help getting started? We are excited to offer Virtual Help sessions for anyone looking to learn more about the science fair, brainstorm a topic, or ask questions. These sessions will take place on:

• Wednesday, April 21st from 9:15 - 10:15 am   AND
• Wednesday, April 28th from 9:15 - 10:15 am

A Google Meet code will be shared via email before the sessions.

Need help making and uploading your presentation or video? We’ve made a Science Fair how-to page
on our Science Fair Flipgrid site.

You can access our how-to site HERE (passcode: Swans2021). On this site you will find videos about:

1. How to use the Google Slides template to talk about your experiment or project
2. How to edit the Google Slides template to enter in information about your project
3. How to record your screen and Google slide presentation using Flipgrid, AND
4. How to upload a video to Flipgrid that you've recorded on your Chromebook or other device.

Ready to share your work? All science fair videos are due online by Wednesday, May 12th and should be no more than 2.5 minutes. Each grade has its own Flipgrid page for uploading project videos.  The videos will be kept private until the science fair!

• Kindergarten: https://flipgrid.com/4098e6f5
• 1st Grade: https://flipgrid.com/b454e942
• 2nd Grade: https://flipgrid.com/5943003e
• 3rd Grade: https://flipgrid.com/47ce696a
• 4th Grade: https://flipgrid.com/6cf0ae48
• 5th Grade: https://flipgrid.com/274dabea

You can access your grade by using the passcode Swans2021, or your inst.hcpss.org account, or a gmail account. Videos will be moderated and revealed during our Google Meet sessions the night of the fair so that we can all watch together.

Science fair videos will be shown during Virtual Science fair nights on Wednesday, May 19th 6:30-7:30 pm for grades K-2 and Thursday, May 20th, 6:30-7:30 pm for grades 3-5. After your video is shown, you will get a chance to answer questions about your science fair project!

Parent volunteers are needed to help judge both evenings. If you have a student interested in participating in the fair and/or are able to volunteer to help, please fill out the Science Fair Interest Form.

We are looking forward to a great virtual science fair!  If you have any questions, please email your Science Fair PTA Co-Chairs, Amy Becker (amybreebecker@gmail.com) or Debbie Goldberg (debbie.s.goldberg@gmail.com).