From October through February, the Portsmouth Public Library receives many requests from students and their parents for assistance with science fair projects and experiments.  Some families prefer to look through books and select a project here while others locate one online and visit the library for research and support materials. The library also provides copies of a Dewey Decimal guide to the sciences section and a “How to Plan a Science Project” worksheet to help guide families.

Once the science fair season begins, staff will pull a large collection of science project/experiment books and create a science fair table.  To better maintain the display collection, we ask children and parents three questions: 1) When is the project due? 2) What grade-level is needed?  3) What school do you attend?  From collecting this information, we have learned that most students are in grades 2 – 7 and that almost all the schools in the city and county either require or encourage children to do a project.

Our website has a section entitled “Science Fair Success” that gives some basic advice for children and parents to take into consideration in selecting a project.  Our site also features a list of popular science titles found in the library and websites that are well-established federal or educational science project websites.  The “Science Fair Success” section may be viewed by visiting Your PPL Kids Cove at yourppl.org.