Brainstorm with Center leadership to create a picture in everyone’s mind of what the science fair will look like. Defining a clear vision of the event is crucial to its success.
Select a center or room location that will have the most visibility and space for displaying projects and documentation.
Decide on a date.
A science fair provides a wonderful opportunity to use the project approach. Every classroom participating will decide on a topic or project.
Discuss and decide on the question or hypothesis that will be the basis for all activities and experiments. A science project for a science fair should involve exploration and discovery of the chosen topic for a period of 4 to 8 weeks.
Document every activity with pictures showing step-by-step processes. Save pictures and any other material for when the project is recreated through your display presentation. Display boards will tell the story of your project. Artifacts and objects will add dimension to the total presentation.

The Journey is as Important as the Event: Planning the Day of the Science Fair

Decide who is going to attend. Is it only for parents? Is your corporate client or other guests invited? Is it in a location that allows many people to see the exhibit, such as an open atrium, or will it be held at the center?
Market and advertise your event.
Presentation is everything! Carefully plan out the space and how it will look to others. Tables will be needed for display boards and other exhibits. Think about attractive coverings for the tables. Traffic flow is also something to consider.
How will the children participate? This is a big decision. It is important that they be involved in some way.
You may be able to leave displays up for more than a day or be able to move them to another location after the fair to display.

Other Ways to Bring Eventfulness to the Day

Make science fair t-shirts for children by choosing graphics from the Bright Horizons intranet or other that depicts the science project. Then use transfer forms to press onto the shirts. It is time-consuming and expensive, but it is a great souvenir and a wonderful way to involve the children in the event.
Create a printed program of all the projects on display to hand out to people.