THE CENTRAL UTAH SCIENCE & ENGINEERING FAIR IS PRESENTED BY THE BYU McKAY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION AND THE BYU-PUBLIC SCHOOL PARTNERSHIP

Parents

Thank you for participating with your kids in this years’ science fair. We want to make this event fun for both you and your student, so we’ve made this page especially for you.

Don’t Be Disqualified!

Let’s get this out of the way first... here is a list of items that will cause your child’s project to be automatically disqualified from participating in the fair. We want to put this list at the very top so no one wastes any time building a project that won't be able to compete. Here’s the list:

AUTOMATIC DISQUALIFICATION FOR:
Projects done at home that involve bacteria in any way
Projects designed to kill vertebrate animals
ANY deaths in a vertebrate animal project due to experimentation
Human subject projects where there is unacceptable risk involved for the participants

Please review the Experimental and Display and Safety Rules for more info on the above.

Resources & Project Help

Need help choosing a topic? Start with the handy Project Topic Selection Wizard.
Need a mentor? Find an online mentor or Email us for a local mentor.
A parent’s role in the science fair
Where to get general help for your student.
View abstracts from previous student projects

CUSEF Competition Information

CUSEF Brochure (PDF)
How The judging process works (PDF)
Available Scholarships
CUSEF Schedule

Rules

Rules Wizard
What things can & can’t be displayed
Experimental rules

CUSEF Registration Forms

As an affiliate to the Intel ISEF, we are required to document that all of our students are abiding by the rules established for pre-college researchers. The documentation is achieved through filling out a variety of forms.

Elementary & Junior Division Students

Students in grades 5-8 are only required to fill out the CUSEF registration form. Lucky ducks.

Elementary Division (Grades 5 & 6)
Elementary Division Registration Form (English)
Formulario de Entrada Grados 5-6 (Spanish)

Junior Division (Grades 7 & 8)
Junior Division Registration Form (English)
Formulario de Entrada Grados 7-8 (Spanish)

Senior Division Students

Students in grades 9-12 are required to fill out the CUSEF registration form and include a detailed research plan.

The following are required for all Senior Division students:

Depending on the research and test-subjects involved, the following may also be required:

FAQs

We’ve prepared a list of questions that we answer a lot. Please have a look at our FAQs to see if your questions are there. If not, please feel free to contact us.

“A science fair project integrates into one functional activity, virtually all of the skills and arts that are usually taught separately in many schools. When brought to completion, the project is an amalgamation of reading, writing, spelling, grammar, math, statistics, ethics, logic, critical thinking, computer science, graphic arts, scientific methodology, self learning of one or more technical or specialty fields, and (if the project qualifies for formal competition) public speaking and defense in front of expert judges. It is, perhaps, the only educational activity that allows students to teach themselves, to take from the established information what they need to discover something exciting and new, and to identify and choose the tools that they need to conduct and conclude their project. When a student completes a science fair project, year after year, through junior high and senior high school, the science fair process yields mature, self-confident, skilled, and competitive young leaders who have career goals and the preparation, discipline, and drive to attain them.”

–The Greater San Diego Science & Engineering Fair