The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has disrupted many aspects of the academic experience. Apart from thousands of students being deprived of in-person interactions as they try to adapt to virtual learning, 2020 has also witnessed a complete overhaul of competitions celebrating science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Gone are the days where brilliant STEM students would congregate in a lively exhibit hall, having dynamic conversations with like-minded peers and gaining inspiration from participating scientists. In many of these events, lifelong friendships would be forged in an environment fostering diversity, innovation and collaboration.
“Too often, that’s the first time students may have been with a cohort of people who share their passion for investigating and solving scientific problems,” explains Michele Glidden, chief program officer at the Society for Science & the Public. “They rediscover their own passion through that exchange with each other.”
The Society for Science & the Public owns and produces the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), one of the world’s most influential educational competitions that stems from a network of over 400 science fairs within 80 countries across the globe. In pre-pandemic days, top students from regional and country-wide fairs would travel to ISEF’s annual main event in the United States to compete for nearly $5 million in awards, prizes and scholarships.
Two other major STEM competitions owned and produced by the Society for Science & the Public include the Regeneron Science Talent Search (STS) and Broadcom MASTERS (Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering for Rising Stars). While Broadcom MASTERS serves middle school students, Regeneron STS is geared towards high school seniors within the U.S. In typical (i.e., non-COVID) years, finalists would be invited to Washington, D.C. for an in-person week-long competition. Thirteen Science Talent Search alumni have moved forward to become Nobel laureates.
“The top winner of the Science Talent Search wins $250,000,” affirms Michele. “The prize money is significant to speak to the prestige of the research those students are doing, and how special we think they are to support their education in order for them to have successful careers.”
Another significant STEM event for high school students is the annual conference for the American Junior Academy of Science (AJAS), a program of the National Association of the Academies of Science (NAAS). While not itself a competition, the science fair brings together winners from Science Academy state-wide competitions and honors them for their outstanding scientific research achievements. The AJAS conference is held in conjunction with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting.
“Our mission is to introduce, encourage and accelerate pre-college students into the social, cultural, intellectual and professional world of science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” states Lee Brogie, executive director at AJAS.
“Coming to our conference really can wake them up to what it is to be a part of the scientific community,” adds Ed Brogie, executive director at NAAS.
The AJAS meeting traditionally involves a high degree of personal interaction that can be a life-changing experience for students. During the conference, AJAS delegates tour local institutions of scientific importance, share their research with peers and scientists, and attend keynote sessions featuring speakers such as Bill Gates, Leon Lederman, Francis Collins, Bruce Alberts and Soyeon Yi.
One unique networking event at the AJAS meeting is the Breakfast With Scientists, where students sit with prominent scientists and gain invaluable mentorship in terms of cutting-edge research from people that they’ve only read about. In the past, the breakfast has been hosted by leading universities including MIT, University of Texas at Austin, and Northeastern University—many of whom are looking to recruit some of these top students.
STEM Competitions During the Pandemic
While the AJAS meeting was able to squeeze by in February 2020 before the worst of the COVID-19 crisis had hit the U.S., many other STEM events were not as lucky. Numerous regional and state science fairs within the Society for Science & the Public’s affiliated fair network had to cancel their events due to a lack of time and/or resources for running virtual competitions.
“We had several regional fairs and a couple of state fairs back in the spring who made a very conscious decision not to hold an event, because they did not believe that students could be judged equitably,” says Michele. “They were concerned about limited Wi-Fi and that even cell reception was spotty for many of their students.”
The Southern Arizona Research, Science and Engineering Foundation (SARSEF)—whose top students go on to compete at ISEF—was able to organize a hybrid event around the time that COVID-19 was just starting to make headlines. SARSEF managed to successfully pivot their in-person fair by incorporating social distancing measures and implementing virtual interactions where possible.
This year, SARSEF hosted over 2,225 projects from an estimated 7,500 students. In order to minimize the number of people on the project floor, one representative from each school was invited to set up projects, and project pick-up was spaced out over three days. Interviews between middle school students and scientists were canceled; judges were instead encouraged to leave notes so that students still felt that their projects had been reviewed thoroughly. In-person high school interviews were made optional, and each project was placed alone on an eight-foot table in order to allow for more distance during interviews. Remote interviews were also offered to high school students, and iPad stations were set up where Google Hangouts was used to connect students with judges. Judges were provided with disposable headphones, and each iPad was wiped down after use. The start time of interviews was staggered at each iPad station to avoid crowding. All participants at the fair were encouraged to use the new “SARSEF handshake”—two thumbs up for science.
SARSEF went on to cancel its Future Innovators Night, a key event typically attended by around 4,000 people, where 50 booths from local organizations would offer hands-on science activities for families free of charge. Award ceremonies were recorded ahead of time and posted online, and winners received their trophies in the weeks following the fair.
As the pandemic grew worse, regional and state science fairs could no longer hold hybrid events like the one SARSEF had successfully pulled off. For some events, students had to transform their projects into research papers and participate in what was essentially a student paper competition. Other STEM organizations utilized phone interviews and video conferencing tools. Some students presented pre-recorded videos and materials, which judges reviewed to make decisions.
“I expect a hybrid of those different options will be used again this spring, depending on the technology and resources available at the fair level, school level and student level,” shares Michele.
Since many pre-ISEF fairs were able to name finalists, the Society for Science & the Public decided against fully canceling Regeneron ISEF and instead launched a delayed virtual event.
“We wanted to hold the event and honor the finalists as much as we could,” highlights Michele. “But we did not feel that we could pull off any kind of virtual judging in a fair way—so we made the decision that it would be non-competitive, and pivoted to an expo model where we displayed the finalist projects. We had still put them through the Scientific Review Committee (SRC), so they were not on that exhibit hall floor unless they had qualified.”
Panels were pre-recorded, and an intensive week of programming was held to celebrate the finalists. Fair organizers used 6Connex to build a virtual platform for displaying student projects.
“The beauty of it was that—unlike a typical ISEF, which is a pretty closed show—we were able to invite the public,” says Michele. “We opened it up to all of our fairs, and anyone else who knew about it could register and sign in to the platform to see the sessions either live or post-live. We posted them and you could watch them on demand. At the end of the day, we had 18,000 people come through the system in the two weeks that it was open.”
To keep things lively, Regeneron ISEF also put together a virtual dance celebrating students from around the world.
When it came to the Regeneron Science Talent Search, the Society originally tried postponing the event in hopes that they could reconvene by early fall. As it became clearer over the summer that the pandemic was nowhere close to being over, the Society for Science & the Public had to make the choice to hold the Science Talent Search virtually.
“All of the Regeneron STS students are high school seniors, and so they’re about to go off to their college careers,” explains Michele. “The idea that we would delay and continue to postpone and not hold an event for them didn’t make a lot of sense—we needed to finish their high school career and allow them to go off to college. And because the award monies are so significant, we didn’t want that to go un-judged. We wanted to be able to award those students.”
After a very short planning timeframe, Regeneron Science Talent Search was held during the third week of July. Since 6Connex had been licensed for the year, it was again used for the public showcasing of the finalists’ projects.
“As part of the 6Connex platform, there’s a main theater where you can see the on-demand and/or programmed sessions live in first instance,” details Michele. “We also had a Society for Science & the Public office where you could learn more about our programs, with links to our websites. You went into the Finalist Exhibit Hall in each instance, to learn more about the students and the finalists. And then we had a STEM Experiential Hall that we had launched at ISEF, which we recreated for each of our different platforms. It houses a lot of STEM non-profits, virtual field trips and those kinds of things. On that platform, we highlighted many of our partners, sending you typically through a PDF form to their websites and online offerings, but all from one place.”
After learning from their virtual Science Talent Search experience, the Society for Science & the Public recently held a remote Broadcom MASTERS competition.
“It was challenging,” says Michele. “We ended up sending everybody a tech kit, which included a laptop, ring light, camera and microphone. Our production team sent them separate iPads so that they could download images and materials. We sent Wi-Fi if the students needed Wi-Fi, ethernet cables if they needed to be hardwired, backdrops so that everybody could use a virtual backdrop, attire so they could all be wearing the same apparel. We really tried to make it so that we saw every student identically in a space within their home—so that we didn’t see their house or their siblings, and they were really almost on a stage. Some of that was harder than for others. We got feedback from the families about how much time and space it took.
“For the Broadcom MASTERS in particular, they’re doing team challenges, but we didn’t want them to know about that prior to arrival. We used Slack as a communication channel to give them links for going into the appropriate Zoom room when we had it open for them. So for instance, if a student was coming in for a judging appointment, they checked in on Slack to tell us they were there 15 minutes before their appointment. Our staff member made sure that the judge and our staff were ready for them in Zoom, and sent the student a link. The student followed the link into the Zoom room and was met by our main host.
“Students then went into a tech-check room where we had a staff member ensure that all their tech was right—that they had the right shirt on, they knew how to hide non-video participants, they had the backdrop. They had their paper and pen, and their phone was put away. All of the rules of judging that they were ready for the appointment.
“We had a staff member in with each judge and as soon as all parties were ready, we sent the student into the appointment. When we’d send one student away, we’d always have another student on deck. The check-in and communication through Slack allowed the students a way to communicate without using the chat within Zoom, where so many people could see the chat. And we had channels for our judges and for our staff to be communicating with each other so that we knew what was going on. It all ended up working pretty smoothly. We had very little issues with technology, and we had our IT Team on call to help if anybody was ever experiencing problems.”
How Going Virtual Affects the Student Experience
Even with strategies for organizing virtual team challenges, project displays and equitable remote judging, Michele has concerns about what the overall finalist experience will be like at Regeneron ISEF 2021, which will include virtual judging.
“If it’s a 15-minute interview in the middle of the night, what kind of experience is that?” expresses Michele. “A 15-minute experience is not ISEF, right? No matter how well we do in naming the appropriate students as the winners, it will still not be anywhere near the in-person experience. So our challenge for Regeneron ISEF to truly be successful is for us to find that socialization. To figure out how to allow students to have conversations with each other and enjoy open dialogue. The sheer enormity of the Regeneron ISEF is going to be a barrier to doing that well, but we’re going to continue to strive for that, because I think it’s critically important.
“Anything virtual is not equal to the excitement of being in an exhibit hall housing 1400 projects from around the world. Being in the virtual hall is nowhere near the same experience. If we can provide some avenues for actual interchange between the finalists, in addition to a fair judging process, and have some amazing panels and discussions among distinguished scientists and engineers, then maybe we’ve pulled off a facsimile of the best we can do virtually.”
Apart from the competition experience, COVID-19 has impacted STEM students’ projects as well. Research that can only be performed in a home environment often comes with limitations.
“We have pretty strict rules about the use of animals and potentially hazardous biological agents for experiments that require qualified scientists and an appropriate laboratory, in order to be conducted safely,” says Michele. “Without those infrastructures available, much of that research cannot be done.”
Michele believes that data-driven projects will present an avenue that is still available to students.
“You can do some amazing research and data analysis, and make some really solid clarifications of the world around us through looking at public data. We have seen great projects of that nature before, and I expect to see more of them this year.”
When it comes to student projects, AJAS’ Lee and Ed Brogie see a silver lining related to school shutdowns.
“Students who are truly self-motivated now have more time to work on their projects,” conveys Ed. “Their life is normally so scheduled by school and other things, and the pandemic has put them in charge to really develop their project because they’ve already become adult learners. When students finally get to the point where they’re doing it on their own, that’s just a boon to them.”
“One of our students firmly believes that she made it into the top 10 of her Science Academy’s science fair, and will be sharing her research at the 2021 Virtual AAAS Annual Meeting and AJAS Conference, because of COVID-19,” adds Lee. “Her school schedule was so limited that she had plenty of time to work on her research, and her teacher went into the classroom and got her the resources that she needed and brought them to her home.”
Using the ProjectBoard Platform to Enhance Collaboration
(Full disclosure: ProjectBoard is developed and owned by engineering.com.)
The ProjectBoard platform powers community and project-based learning sites like Make: Projects, and will be used for AJAS’s virtual conference in February 2021.
Youth Science Canada (YSC), a Canada-wide competition whose finalists go on to compete at Regeneron ISEF, has successfully used ProjectBoard for holding its STEM fair virtually in 2020. YSC is planning to leverage the platform again in 2021 by rolling it out to every region in Canada for their local use. (For more details on YSC’s 2020 virtual STEM fair, check out this webinar.)
ProjectBoard enables students, educators, mentors and scientists to have discussions in private and public groups as well as share images, files, videos and whiteboards throughout the lifecycle of a project. The platform also features project templates, group chats and teams. Judges and experts can provide feedback easily, and projects can be archived.
“Let’s say three years later you’re somewhere with your Grandma,” says Lee. “You can bring up your poster session and say, ‘Look Grandma, remember when I did this project?’ Or share it with even colleges and universities that you’re applying to—or share it with future employers.”
While the platform will be unable to replicate the experience of personally having breakfast with scientists, Lee and Ed believe that going virtual can come with its own advantages. For one, by foregoing the need to travel, costs can be reduced and more renowned scientists can participate at the AJAS annual meeting. Furthermore, using ProjectBoard to host a virtual poster session can extend the participating students’ ability to collaborate on projects.
“Collaboration is a really important aspect of doing a research project,” relates Lee. “Many students coming to AJAS aren’t aware of the collaboration that’s going on in the real scientific community. I think this time of having only a virtual community will be able to really open up collaboration and help more people see that science isn’t actually done in isolation.”
In the end, while the pandemic has adversely impacted the sense of community at STEM fairs, virtual platforms can serve to democratize projects and promote openness within an increasingly interconnected world.