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It depends on what you mean by a 'science fair.' When we give students a recipe to folllow, like the usual five-step 'scientific method' (e.g., question, hypothesis, experiment, analysis, conclusion), yes, we are teaching a rigid, linear method, which will turn kids off from science -- at any grade. Also, such a 'scientific method' is not what scientists do, so we are not teaching real science this way. A lockstep procedure like that makes science seem like little more than a boring task, which is not at all what real science is like. What we CAN do, even at the lowest grades, is teach science as the fun activity that it really is: exploration and discovery. At its root, science is simply observing the world, asking a question about something you're curious about, and then trying (perhaps with a teacher's or mentor's guidance) to find a pathway to an answer.
No special terminology (e.g., hypothesis) is needed. Just let children explore and discover. That's something that can be done starting in kindergarten and even earlier, and if we organize all this exploration into a 'science fair,' it can become a huge celebration of discovery ... and fun!
Matt
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