Public school mandates, assessments may be hurting science fair participation

State and federal mandates such as standardized assessments are behind a decrease in entries in this year's Southeast Missouri Regional Science Fair, local educators say.

The annual science fair, which was held Tuesday at the Show Me Center, has two age divisions, one for high school students and one for junior high students.

Schools from as far away as Ellington, Mo., Pemiscot County and Risco, Mo., were represented at the fair along with the majority of local parochial schools.

But local public schools were barely represented this year. There were no entries from Cape Girardeau or Jackson school districts.

Administrators such as Rick McClard, principal at Jackson High School, said his students and teachers have to focus on projects that have a direct impact on the school, like the annual Missouri Assessment Program tests.

"We do a lot of stuff internally. Because of classtime, we've elected to worry about MAP testing," McClard said. "It's not that we don't want to participate, but it's the time spent on it versus stuff we have to get done, like MAP."

Because parochial and private schools don't face the same accountability on state tests as public schools, McClard said they may be more likely to participate in time-consuming events like the science fair. There were five local parochial schools and 15 public schools in this year's fair.

Farmington Middle School brought 25 seventh- and eighth-graders and took home 32 awards.

"It's exactly what we're asking students to do, go beyond rote learning, go deeper," said Jeffery William, principal at Lincoln Intermediate School in Farmington. "That's the emphasis of MAP too, but in some cases students have gone beyond that."

Nancy Zertan, the gifted teacher who organized Farmington's entries, said her students choose one competition every year to focus on. This was the school's first time at the regional science fair and students began work on experiment in November.

"It hits an awful lot of skills that our school systems want us to hit these days, higher order thinking, creativity, logical order thinking, as well as writing, proofing and editing," said Zertan.

cclark@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 128