Author: The Hippo Press

Middle and high school students show their skills

The New Hampshire Science and Engineering Exposition Association will be putting on its first middle school science fair in May, in addition to its high school science fair in March. Both fairs will be held at NHTI. Deb Schuh is the president of the organization and her husband, Dana Schuh, is the treasurer. They both spoke to the Hippo about the upcoming science fairs.

How did the science fair come about?

Deb: So, many years ago, actually it was around early 2000 to 2003, there were … some science teachers. One of them in Milford who was really into life sciences and bio sciences got together with another couple of teachers and people who were interested in doing a competition. I think someone had a connection to Manchester Community College, they had Manchester Community College run a fair back in 2003. It was mostly Milford and I think Seacoast Technology that played in it. That was sort of the first fair. So it started from then, and it’s changed over the years … it kind of just got started because science teachers wanted to get more involved.

Dana: The name of our organization is, all spelled out, New Hampshire Science and Engineering Exposition Association. The Association is really the group that runs the fair, but the fair is known as Expo….

Why did you all decide to branch out from high school to middle school students as well?

Deb: We have for years been attending the New Hampshire Science Teachers Association conferences, usually twice a year, and we hear a lot from middle school teachers. … we clearly hear that there’s an excitement at that age group for kids to start to participate in science, the teachers have looked for it. We want kids to have gotten into the sciences when they’re a little bit younger and it’s a cool thing to do … Get that pipeline going a little earlier when the kids think it’s fun and interesting. There’s a lot of excitement at that age.

What sorts of projects or experiments do you expect to see in the middle school science fair as well as the high school one?

Deb: We went to one a couple years ago, I guess it was last year…. They had one that was fifth- and sixth-graders and they’re doing things that play with gravity or play with growing something or how things move in general. It can be a little bit physics-oriented, like what you can do with water or what you can do with falling water and how things in the world react. So those, they’re a little simpler, but they’re sort of fun. … When you get to high school, we have a complete range. We have plenty of projects that if you’re not a judge and qualified in that area, you can’t even understand it. So it’s very high level. There are high school students that are producing college-level projects. They are looking at photosynthesis and how that can help purify water, that kind of thing. They’re looking at environmental studies. They’re looking at biotech. …

Dana: Well, I was just going to say, one of the things that’s sort of reinforcing that it’s fun is we have many judges that have been coming for over a decade, year after year, because they enjoy the event so much. These are judges from the schools, these are judges from industry, these are just people that love seeing the young kids showing their stuff with enthusiasm and nervousness.

Why is it important for younger kids to get involved in the STEM field?

Deb: It’s kind of the same when you think about the big push for robotics. We need more high-tech skilled kids. … So, the younger you can get them attracted to those kinds of things and the more fun they have with it, the more they’re likely to stick with it. We want more schools. We sort of average anywhere between 11 and 18 schools a year. It goes up and down. … You want it to be more students. You want more energy around those fields. Mostly we need a workforce on biology, on biotech, on everything with life sciences, on everything with environmental sciences, right? We don’t have enough of the … even engineering and computers. We don’t have enough of that skill set and we need more.

Does a student need their school to be a part of the fair to apply?

Deb: A lot of the students come in individually without school sponsorship, and then there’s a bunch of kids that do come with school sponsorship. So it’s a mix. We also can get home-school kids. —Zachary Lewis

2025 New Hampshire Science and Engineering Expo

High School
When: Thursday, March 20
Where: NHTI Concord’s Community College, Dr. Goldie Crocker Wellness center, 19-23 Institute Drive, Concord
Registration deadline for participants is Sunday, Feb. 9

Middle School
When: Thursday, May 22
Where: NHTI Concord’s Community College, Concord
Registration deadline for participants is Tuesday, April 15, with final forms due by Sunday, April 27.

More: nhsee.org

—Zachary Lewis

Featured image: Courtesy photo.