Metro Richmond Science and Engineering Fair
March 2, 2023
The VCU School of Education’s Center for Innovation in STEM Education is hosting the Metro Richmond Science and Engineering Fair at the VCU School of Engineering on Saturday, March 4, 2023.
Students from multiple Central Virginia school divisions will present their research investigation posters and compete for recognition and the opportunity to advance to regional and national competitions.
The Society for Science, which manages the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), provided a grant to the VCU School of Education’s Center for Innovation in STEm Education to manage the fair. Additional partners include VCU College of Engineering,, VCU Strategic Enrollment Management and Student Success, VCU Foundation, VCU College of Humanities and Sciences, and VCU Life Sciences.
First-place winners in the senior category will advance to the Virginia State Science and Engineering Fair on April 14 at Old Dominion University. First-place junior fair winners may also advance to the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge. Students recognized for two Grand Award Best-in-Show projects will advance to the Regeneron Science and Engineering Fair May 14-19 in Dallas, Texas, with all expenses paid.
“Research espouses the importance of experiences like these where students get to ask and seek answers to their own driving questions to science phenomena and engineering challenges that are relevant to their everyday lives and sparked by their own curiosities,” said Al Byers, assistant research professor, STEM Education at the VCU School of Education. “Deeper and more intrinsic learning is ignited when students have autonomy in the design and execution of authentic research where they also engage in discourse leveraging their data as evidence to support their claims, findings, and reasoning.
The fair is designed to cultivate and inspire the next generation of STEM-literate citizens in the fields of medicine, health, biodiversity, energy, climate, cybersecurity, and more via careers as scientists, technicians, engineers, doctors, and educators.