3 months ahead Prepare and send information and registration forms to schools in the area. Send multiple copies to each school, addressing them to science teachers, gifted education coordinators, and principals. 2 months ahead Develop and refine lab experiments. 1 day before Set up lab stations and make any last minute adjustments. Students work on lab exercises.
Students have lunch while results are judged.
Prizes and certificates are awarded. Since students in our competition complete six laboratory activities in three hours, selection of the specific experiments is important for the success of the event. Some of the experiments we use take less than 20 minutes, while others may require 40 minutes of work. It is the responsibility of the student team to determine the order in which they will work on the exercises, how long they will spend on each, and even if they will work together or if each team member should work on different experiments at the same time. In the end, the results are judged as a team effort.