2016 NGS Science & Engineering Fair Fosters Research/Presenting to Experts

March 24, 2016


An NGS student listens as Angela Nelson (right), Director of NGS' after-school STEAM program, STEAM Studio, discusses his research project during the NGS Science and Engineering Fair.

February 19th, 2016 was probably circled in red on the calendars of many Next Generation School students (and most likely their parents’ calendars, too). After weeks spent choosing a project, learning about their subject in depth, designing and conducting a research project, then making a poster, the day of the school’s Science and Engineering Fair had finally arrived. Projects completed, the students were excited to finally get to present their research—first, to a local expert, who gave them positive, and possibly negative, feedback—then later, to mom and dad during the evening session open to the public.


An Illinois community expert listens as an NGS student discusses her research.

As in past years, no one student or team was declared the winner—all the students are winners. They’ve learned about the scientific method, gained in-depth knowledge about the subject matter of their project, plus acquired some useful skills about how to do and present research. The students also gained some other real-life skills that will be useful no matter what field they go into. For one, as in past years, the school invited community experts, many from Illinois, to help judge the projects, so students get an expert’s assessment of their project. So they’re put into a situation where they learn to think on their feet as they explain their work to someone they don’t know.


Illinois Division of Nutritional Sciences graduate student Lauren Killian interacts with an NGS student about her project.

Both Next Generation School staff, as well as the community experts, consider the benefits the students reap well worth everyone's time and effort. For instance, Head of the School Chris Bronowski says seeing her students’ excitement and watching them grow through the process are well worth the work involved.

“Watching what the students do and watching them push themselves,” acknowledges Bronowski, “it makes all of the preparation, all of the work that goes into it, every minute of it, worth it.”

Bronowski, whose daughter is in kindergarten this year, got to personally see first-hand the excitement the Fair generates in students.

“This morning, she was beside herself because they were going to have an expert coming to their room, and they were going to get to talk about their project,” She says. “Seeing that inspiration in her and that excitement, that’s why we do it.”

On the flipside of that, in addition to engendering excitement, she and her staff also hope to stir up some more negative feelings—like trepidation—so the students learn to overcome those.


An NGS student presents his research.

“There were a lot of nervous kiddos coming in this morning, and that’s good,” she admits. “That’s good to put them in situations where they are nervous, and then they come together with these people who are wonderful, and they do it, and they see ‘Okay, well that wasn’t so bad’ and then the next time they do it, they’re not as nervous as the time before.”

In fact, the idea is that students should present to a total stranger. In the past, they have discouraged the recruitment of parents whose kids attend NGS to serve as judges, “because we really do want it to be someone whom the children are not familiar with,” says Bronowski. However, a number of last-minute cancellations this year forced them to call on parents who were STEM experts to serve as judges. However, these parents were cautioned during the orientation to not judge their child’s project, or even those of children that they know.

“Because we do want it to be a somewhat uncomfortable situation where they’re talking with someone that they don’t know,” acknowledges Bronowski.

What’s another negative emotion staff are ok with their students experiencing? The disappointment of failure. “They need to blow it sometimes,” adds Bronowski, “so that they see, ‘Okay, I can pick up the pieces and move on, and life doesn’t end.’ You do have to have those times where you do fail to see, ‘It’s all okay.’”

According to Bronowski, she and her staff had thought about introducing a theme to this year’s fair to give it more of a focus, but decided not to.


Illinois Molecular and Cellular Biology Ph.D. student, Mara Livesey (left), listens as an NGS student presents her research project during the NGS Science and Engineering Fair.

“I’m really glad that we didn’t,” she says, “because the variety in what the students have done this year and really watching them go with their passions and their interest is I think…I don’t know that we will ever consider that again after watching how they pick projects or ideas that are really suited for them. That’s what it’s all about: you follow your passion…We had two of our basketball players who designed a shoe. I think that ultimately we all kind of sat back and thought, “This is what it’s about.”

She says this year they did reintroduce middle schoolers working in partnerships, which she indicated worked well for them.

Like Bronowski, the community experts, most of whom are Illinois researchers or graduate students in STEM fields, take time from their work to serve as judges, many of them year after year, because they, too, enjoy the students’ excitement.


Illinois Assistant Professor Erik Nelson (top left), a cancer researcher in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, listens as an NGS student talks about their project.

Back serving as a judge for his second year in a row was Illinois Assistant Professor Erik Nelson. He enjoyed himself so much last year, that he signed up again.

“I was so impressed by the quality and the caliber of the science presented, and just the overall enthusiasm of the students was very contagious, so I really wanted to come back this year and learn about all the new great projects that are going on.”

Nelson believes participating in the Fair benefits the students in a couple of ways. For one, they learn about science:


An NGS student presents her research project to an Illinois researcher.

“This is a great way for the students to learn about the scientific method and learn about all the basic practices that real scientists do. They need to come up with a problem; they present a hypothesis; they come up with a mechanism to test that hypothesis; and then they go ahead and test it, and find their results.”

Like Bronowski, he also feels having students present their research is another key benefit:

“Today they have the opportunity to present the entire story from how they designed their projects to what their conclusions are, which in science is just as important as doing the work itself.”

Did Nelson see any future scientists or engineers? “Absolutely,” he reports. “I think every one of these students, at least all of the presentations that I’ve seen today, any one of those can be a potential scientist."

Another community expert who served as a judge, Henna Muzaffar, an Illinois researcher in Food Science and Human Nutrition, also believed many of the students could be future scientists. She cited one student’s project about battery lives. The student had examined three different kind of batteries used in hearing aids, and how air interacts with the content of the batteries when they’re not in use.


An Illinois researcher in Food Science and Human Nutrition, Henna Muzaffar (left), and another community expert, Mary Tucker, chat while filling out student evaluation forms.

“You can see that the depth of knowledge that the student has gained from this project is tremendous,” says Muzaffar, “and if she feels excited about learning this information, you can definitely see a scientist in her right there.”

Muzaffar has attended the NGS’ Science Fair for the last five years. “Every year it’s very exciting to come to the Science Fair and see all these kids come up with innovative ideas and great presentations. It’s a great learning experience for people of all ages.”


An NGS student presents his research project to a local expert.

This year Muzaffar actually got the opportunity to come and evaluate the students’ presentations: “I’m very impressed with the oral, the written, and the scientific skills that the students of Next Generation possess. I’m very, very impressed with all these kids. They are wonderful; they’ve done a tremendous amount of work in their projects, and it shows! They’re excited about the topic they explored, and they’ve put hours of work in preparing their presentations and doing the actual experiments, and then thinking about what future directions they can go from what they’ve learned from this present experiment.”

For Maxwell Baymiller, an Illinois biochemist, it was also his first year serving as a judge, and he too was quite impressed: “Yeah, I’ve been really pleasantly surprised. Some high-quality projects, especially in the young kids. I really like how they’ve encouraged them to create a clear question, address it with an experiment, and then get feedback on it rather than a win or a loss.  

Baymiller says he, too, saw some future scientists: “There’s a couple of interesting biology projects. There was one kid who was very, very motivated about growing his funky organism. I’m actually about to recommend him to some different organization.”


Illinois biochemist Maxwell Baymiller (left) judges a NextGen student's project.

Baymiller also appreciated the students’ creativity when choosing their projects: “One thing that was really interesting to me was that there were students who applied their science project to nontraditional areas. A great project just about baseball; the kid is into baseball, and it might have made him better at baseball by testing something about throwing. A girl who’s into Greek literature, who did a great social psychology experiment with it. You wouldn’t think that you could apply science to these things, but these kids managed.”

So, how did Head of School Chris Bronowski think the kids did? “They did so well,” shei asserts. “It’s not an easy process, and there were lots of “What do I do?” emails to Mr. Fritz on Saturday, especially at the middle school level. But ultimately, I feel like every one of our groups has come up with a really dynamic, interesting project that they should be proud of. We’re very proud of them for their effort and the thought that went behind it.”
More: 6-8 Outreach, K-6 Outreach, Next Generation School, Science Fair, 2016

For additional I-STEM articles highlighting Next Generation School's partnership with the University of Illinois, see the following:


Community expert Mary Tucker (left) listens as an NGS student presents his research project.

An NGS student and her team present the results of their project about whether crushed seeds will grow.

An NGS student discusses his research with an Illinois expert.




SOLIDarity EXperiences (SOLIDEX) through the Eyes of Children

What do children aged 11-13 in two countries think about solidarity?
Full Story

Students launch ASL STEM Vocabulary App Company

Students launch ASL STEM Vocabulary App Company
Full Story

Innovation, Inspiration on display at the Undergraduate Research Symposium

Undergraduate Research Week took place April 23-29, 2023, and culminated Thursday, April 27, 2023
Full Story

What would you like to see – 3D printers? Magnets? Solar-powered racing cars? Robobrawl?

March 28, 2023
EOH occurs Friday, March 31, and Saturday, April 1, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily.
Full Story

Tour of Illinois’ Materials Research Lab through I-MRSEC sparks Franklin students’ interest in Materials Science

March 1, 2023
Students from the Champaign middle school had a tour of the Material Research Laboratory (MRL) in early February.
Full Story

Nobel Project’s End-of-Year Zoom Bash Recaps Learning

February 1, 2022
The STEM Illinois Nobel Project held a special, end-of-the-year Zoom event celebrating its participating students’ achievements.
Full Story

It’s not magic, it’s physics

January 26, 2022
In Franklin STEAM Academy, Musical Magnetism program makes STEM fun, approachable.
Full Story

Program prepares STEM educators to teach all students

November 30, 2021
This summer, a group of educators gathered to learn about engaging STEM activities they can do with their students.
Full Story

Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program

November 11, 2021
Undergrads get a taste of research through I-MRSEC’s REU program.
Full Story

Goldstein’s Renaissance Engineering Summer Camp

November 1, 2021
Goldstein’s Renaissance Engineering Summer Camp Incorporates Art, Design, Mechatronics, and Mentoring
Full Story

TechTogether Chicago to Redefine the Hacker Stereotype

July 10, 2021
New workshops that can help inspire students to pursue careers in technology..
Full Story

Aerospace Engineering Launches Virtual Summer Camps to Pique Students’ Interest in Aero.

July 2, 2021
Design an aircraft then watch it soar after launching it with a huge rubber band. Build a Mars lander to safely transport a real egg, then test the contraption by dropping it from a second story window.
Full Story

Undergrads Experience Materials Science Research Courtesy of the I-MRSEC REU

June 16, 2021
Ten undergraduate students are spending the summer of 2021 discovering what research is like.
Full Story

MatSE Afterschool Academy

MatSE Afterschool Academy

June 14, 2021
MatSE Afterschool Academy to Introduce Students to Materials Science and Beyond.
Full Story

Taylor Tucker Embraces Multidisciplinary Interest

Taylor Tucker Embraces Multidisciplinary Interest

June 14, 2021
Taylor Tucker Embraces Multidisciplinary Interest While Researching Task Collaboration.
Full Story

Exposes Franklin Middle Schoolers to Science, CS

What Studying Engineering at Illinois is Like?

May 25, 2021
NSBE’s Michaela Horn Exposes Franklin Middle Schoolers to Science, CS, and What Studying Engineering at Illinois is Like.
Full Story

Jenny Saves a Convertible.

Children’s-Book-Writing Duo/

May 19, 2021
Convertibles and Thunderstorms—Children’s-Book-Writing Duo on Their Way Thanks to Illinois Training and Encouragement from Mentors.
Full Story

Improve Learning in Engineering

Improve Learning in Engineering

May 17, 2021
Liebenberg Espouses Mini-Projects to Engage Students Emotionally, Improve Learning in Engineering.
Full Story

Joshua Whitely makes an adjustment to the 3D Bioprinter during the demo.

BIOE435 Capstone Projects

May 12, 2021
BIOE435 Capstone Projects - BIOE Seniors Use Knowledge/Skills to Problem Solve.
Full Story

Elani and Gonzalo shine a UV light on a rose that has absorbed a solution that has made it fluorescent.

Illinois Scientists Shine a (UV) Light on Fluorescence

May 7, 2021
What is fluorescence? What causes it?
Full Story

Joshua Whitely makes an adjustment to the 3D Bioprinter during the demo.

HackIllinois 2021 “Rekindled Connections” With The Tech Community

May 5, 2021
Annual student hackathon HackIllinois with the aim of developing projects on current problems facing society.
Full Story

A Shane Mayer-Gawlik image of the Bridger Aurora, part of his Night Skies photography collection exhibited at the Art-Science Festival.

The Art-Science Festival

April 26, 2021
Illinois Art-Science Festival: Illuminating the Universe...from the Quantum World to the Cosmos.
Full Story

Joshua Whitely makes an adjustment to the 3D Bioprinter during the demo.

Illinois Engineering Seniors Prepared to Change the World

April 22, 2021
Ready. Set. Go! Illinois Engineering Seniors Prepared to Change the World.
Full Story

HML 2021 Virtual Health

HML 2021 Virtual Health

April 19, 2021
Make-a-Thon Gives Citizen Scientists a Shot at Making Their Health-Related Innovations a Reality.
Full Story

I-MRSEC’s Music Video

I-MRSEC’s Music Video

April 7, 2021
I-MRSEC’s Music Video for EOH ’21 Plugs Graphene, 2D Materials
Full Story

Health Make-a-Thon Orientation

HML 2021 Health Orientation

March 30, 2021
HML 2021 Health Make-a-Thon Orientation Prepares Finalists for Competition.
Full Story

Andrea Perry shows Franklin students how to take apart the magnetic drawing board they received in their kit

Musical Magnetism

March 25, 2021
Musical Magnetism: Encouraging Franklin Middle Schoolers to Express Science Via the Arts.
Full Story

Carmen Paquette street performing.

Love of Science

March 9, 2021
Paquette Conveys Her Love of Science, Dance to Franklin STEAM Students Via Musical Magnetism.
Full Stroy

An Engineering Exploration participant exhibits the tower they built as part of the engineering challenge related to Civil Engineering

Engineering Exploration

March 2, 2021
SWE’s Engineering Exploration Outreach Lives Up to Its Name.

ChiS&E’s Family STEM Day

ChiS&E’s Family STEM Day

February 23, 2021
Helps Chicago Youngsters Progress Along the STEM Pipeline Toward Engineering.

Kathny Walsh

Kathy Walsh

February 17, 2021
On Her First Foray into STEAM, Kathy Walsh Acquaints Franklin Students with Microscopy, Haiku.

ChiS&E student

ChiS&E CPS Students

January 19, 2021
Illinois Undergrads Encourage ChiS&E CPS Students Toward Possible Careers in Engineering.

I-MRSEC’s Music Video

CISTEME365 Provides Year-Round PD/Community

January 4, 2021
to Illinois Teachers in Support of Informal STEM Education Efforts to Underserved Students.