S/o science fair haters- would you hire a coach?

[Anonymous]

The complaints made me wonder, as a science teacher, would you hire a coach for an elementary student that:
-Helped child understand the assignment
- helped set up investigation format and control of variables based on child’s interest
- helped child talk about what they were investigating to demonstrate understanding at their real ability level
- helped child understand how to collect and use data
- did not oversee project /substitute for parent
- did not tell answers to just get it done, but helped child think it through

Just curious. Thanks for taking the time to answer.

[Anonymous]

We don’t have it at our school, but if it was mandatory as it is at some schools and if there was a coach available, I would 100% hire them. At our old school some kids did their projects solo and others had parents who were actual research scientists or doctors who spent half their time on research, so it was clear there were built-in advantages that not all had access to.

I would want them to oversee the project, though. I think the knowledge transfer between the coach and the parents would be tricky to pull off.

[Anonymous]

If I was going to hire a coach for my kids, it would be with the goal of replacing my involvement, so someone who didn't substitute for me wouldn't be a priority.

If you're a science teacher looking to make money working with younger kids, I'd be much more likely to hire a tutor to work one on one or in a small group with my science-loving kid on enrichment and extension activities of interest to him, than on science fair.

[Anonymous]

I'm the PP, and wanted to note that I'm neither a science fair lover nor a science fair hater.

[Anonymous]

No. Now with AI and YouTube it is so easy to find a science experiment and reproduce it.

My kids always did well on science fairs because we went online and read through the winners of contests at various competitions all over the country. They got an idea of what area / topic they were interested in learning more about (ex. plants, electronics, behavior, etc.) They then tweeted the experiments to how they were interested in completing it.