Abstract

Science Fair for Young Children, or SFYC, is an annual event that has been spurring primary
school children to discover the joys of science since 2007. SFYC is organised jointly with
Tamil schools at the local, state and national levels. About 80,000 children have participated
in SFYC. In 2014, we conducted a detailed survey and some interviews in order to measure
the effectiveness of the programme, with the aim of trying to understand the effectiveness of
SFYC in reaching its objectives to make the learning of science more fun and easier to
understand. We have found that the students were very interested in the 'hands-on' method of
learning science via experiments and drawing conclusions from Scientific Methods. SFYC
has also helped teachers teach science better in schools. We have also discovered that SFYC
has helped the participants in developing themselves in areas such as teamwork, creativity,
presentation skills and confidence level, in both knowledge and inner self.