This year's Science Fair will be held on January 22, 2010.
6:00PM - 8:30PM.

Registration Forms: ENGLISH - SPANISH

What is the Science Fair? For about the past five years, Thousand Oaks parent volunteers have organized and run the annual, non-competitive science fair.

Science Fair Goals:

  • Support what our students are learning in their classrooms. Studies show that hands-on science activities help children learn in all subject areas.
  • Supplement Thousand Oak’s science curriculum. The science fair this year will showcase final science projects from the fifth grade and lower grade science classroom activities. Special displays from organizations like Chabot Space & Science support classroom lessons.
  • Provide opportunities for every Thousand Oaks student to participate.
  • Have fun with science.

This night is a chance for kids to display individual, paired, small group and class FUN science projects. Families enjoy pizza and potluck nibbles while checking out displays from our Gardening and Cooking program, Coach B’s solar projects, and outside organizations like Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland Museum and the Insect Discovery Lab.

How does it happen?

We need parents to help with any of the following:

  • assist your child and their friends with an original science project (see links to helpful websites and the T.O. science project instructions below)
  • volunteer to help your child’s class do a class project (demonstrating an activity from the science curriculum, FOSS, your child’s teacher is already using is GREAT)
  • help the night of the Science Fair: set-up, clean-up, bring finger foods, share a family science project!

Contact Amy Billstrom at aebillstrom@yahoo.com or 510-525-2812.

Photos of projects Jan 21, 2005

Science Project Help (Web sites and suggestions)

Our Science Fair was a huge success. Prior to the Fair parent volunteers and teachers spent innumerable hours over a 3-month period to help students with individual and classroom projects. In total, 73 children participated in individual science projects presented in poster format at the night of the Fair, and in the following week in our Multi-purpose room. In addition, 180 children participated in classroom projects which were also presented as posters. A total of over 250 children (56% of the school population) received a certificate for their participation in the Fair. Children who participated in an individual project received a small prize in the form of an experimental science kit. The participating classrooms received science kits as classroom prizes. Some of the prizes were donated by companies whom we solicited by letter.

In addition to the poster presentations we had demonstrations and hands-on experiments from Chabot, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, the Oakland Museum, our science teacher, our cooking teacher and many parent volunteers. It is very hard to judge how many people attended the Fair but it was packed, and we think it was at least two to three hundred if not more. Everybody had a wonderful time. We are already planning the Fair for next year, hoping for a similar if not greater success. The Fair sparked an enthusiasm for science in these kids, something we hope will last for a long time, and will prepare them for a world in which some science knowledge is necessary.