Even with President Barack Obama hosting a White House science fair—and giving such competitions another high-profile plug in his State of the Union Address last month—participation in these events appears to be declining, The New York Times reported the other day.
The story does not cite any national data, but offers up a handful of anecdotal evidence to advance the thesis. For example, the Los Angeles County Science Fair now has 185 schools participating, compared with 244 a decade ago. And in Indiana, high school participation in the state’s science fairs dropped by 15 percent over the past three years.
In his State of the Union Address, President Obama said: “We need to teach our kids that it’s not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science fair.”