Key aspects of successful science fair projects

ABSTRACT

Students’ projects are a valuable way to gain experience with real science and motivate them towards a career in science. However, a description of a successful project is missing. To identify the key aspects of successful projects, we analysed biological projects presented in the national round of the Students’ Professional Activities. Particular projects presented in 10 years were evaluated based on, eg, branch of biology, number of authors, cooperation with experts, use of statistics or laboratory versus fieldwork, and county (region of origin within Czechia). Several different variables (eg, statistical analysis or additional work suggestions) pointed to the influential role of the supervisor, under whose guidance projects are more likely to be successful. Additionaly, projects carried out in the laboratory likely ranked better than those carried out in the field. Furthermore, we traced the influence of supportive teachers and show a high influence of the region on projects’ ranking revealing a potential socioeconomic inequity in access to science in Czechia. The trend of doing more biology work in the laboratory is reflected in increasing the percentage of laboratory-based projects over the ten years. We present a summary of how to conduct successful science projects.

KEYWORDS:

• Project ranking
• science fair
• teachers influence
• supervisors influence
• laboratory
• field

Theoretical background

In recent years, the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) performance of students in the European Union (EU) has decreased along with the number of STEM graduates, and the GDP of the EU (Bacovic et al., 2022). The descriptive statistics analysis shows a strong linear association among income per person, productivity growth, and science and technical education (Bacovic et al., 2022). Therefore, concern about the low number of students choosing science career paths has prevailed over the past decades (Batterham, 2000; Lyons & Quinn, 2015; Rocard, 2007). Students do not find science creative (Salonen et al., 2017), relevant, or interesting (Goodrum et al., 2001). Students who have already chosen science as their path claim that interest is among the top-ranked reasons why they chose scientific careers, together with enjoyment and perceptions of their ability in science (Palmer et al., 2017; Venville et al., 2013). There are several options to motivate students toward science and improve their attitude toward science, such as inquiry-based science education (Prince & Vigeant, 2006), field trips (Sellmann & Bogner, 2013), hands-on courses (Freedman, 1997), competitions together with summer camps (Kuťáková & Janštová, 2015; Oliver & Venville, 2011) and science projects, and science fairs (Fabryová & Janštová, 2018; Jaworski, 2013).

Science competitions and fairs

Out of all options on how to motivate young people to science, we will focus on extracurricular science learning activities, namely science competitions and science fairs, which are typically organised at many schools at entry-level difficulty and therefore offer a meaningful science activity to many students. There are some common aspects of participation in competitions and science fairs, such as that they can both increase the interest in science, strengthen the understanding of scientific inquiry, and have also a positive influence on self-beliefs and students’ identification (Ong et al., 2019; Schmidt & Kelter, 2017; Wu-Tien, 1996). Around 60% of the participants of science fairs said that they were interested in a career in science or engineering, and that participating in science fair increased their interest in science or engineering (Grinnell et al., 2020). Being interested in science motivated students interested in it to choose more challenging tasks (Inoue, 2007). On the other hand, interest in science, science-connected self-efficacy, and scientific knowledge are together with achievements and social aspects the sources of motivation toward participating in a science fair (Dionne et al., 2012). Among the interests, some teachers and parents motivate students to participate in science olympiads (Sahin et al., 2015). Taking part in a science competition or a science fair can increase the interest of participants in a science-related career, as it is often the first time they taste ‘real science’ and meet professional scientists (Campbell & Walberg, 2010; Fabryová & Janštová, 2018; Grinnell et al., 2020; Kuťáková & Janštová, 2015; Sahin et al., 2015; Salonen et al., 2017). This is typically represented by the inquiry approach introduced by experts in the field and possibly including an introduction to the history and philosophy of science. Although some of the participants of science fairs and competitions can choose a different career path based on their experience as they realise that science is not for them (Fabryová & Janštová, 2018), this encounter motivates many others towards science (Kuťáková & Janštová, 2015; Smith et al., 2019), and their involvement is beneficial for the whole society as well (Campbell & Walberg, 2010; Rocard, 2007).

The society also benefits from an international comparison of educational trends and content among countries offered by competitions such as science olympiads and science fairs (Kobayashi, 2007; Lim et al., 2014). However, the trends are not necessarily transferable into a different cultural context. Exchange on the personal level among peers is also valued by the participants (Abernathy & Vineyard, 2001). The educational potential extends beyond the top performers since it was shown that even non-participating students work meaningfully with tasks from a scientific competition (Novák et al., 2021).

However, the stress level related to participating in science olympiads and fairs is too high for some participants, which can cause negative feelings related to these events (Kuťáková & Janštová, 2015; Schmidt & Kelter, 2017). Science olympiads are typically more competitive compared to science fairs, as the students’ results depend on taking a test and practical parts in one day (for one round of the olympiad). This is motivational for some students, while others reported feeling stressed, frustrated, and afraid of being seen by their peers through their results in the olympiad (Kuťáková & Janštová, 2015). Science fairs, namely the official one organised by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports – Students’ Professional Activities (SPA), are less competitive, as students’ results or rankings depend mainly on their medium to long-term work on projects. Although the presentation of the projects is also important, the good projects are well ranked even with a worse presentation. Furthermore, conducting and finalising the project brings a reward on its own (Dionne et al., 2012). Non competing version of a science fair can lead to developing a deep interest in science that goes beyond rewards in wider scope of participants and a switch to more intensive learning (Grinnell et al., 2020; Lewis et al., 1995).

Projects characteristics

Participants and their supervisors decide the focus, methods, and other characteristics of their science projects each year. They are trying to find an answer to the question: What makes a good project that will be among the top-ranked? We have chosen a set of characteristics that can generally be used to describe some aspects of a research project in general, can be influenced by the student and supervisor, are easy to report and evaluate, and we expect them to be important for a well-ranked project. These characteristics focus on biology branches, the way of collecting data, data analysis, cooperation with an expert, etc. which basically describe the focus and methodology of the research done within the project. When it comes to biology, not all branches are equally popular, with zoology typically being the best-ranked one among students and teachers. Human biology is also popular with plant biology, microbiology, and botany at the end of the scale (Prokop et al., 2007). Interestingly, it has been shown that students participating in Biology Olympiad differ from students participating in science fairs (namely, SPA) in their rating of biology branches. Students participating in science fairs did not differ from other students interested in biology; participants in the Biology Olympiad ranked genetics, molecular biology, ecology, and plant biology better compared to the other respondents (Janštová et al., 2015). We wanted to find out if focusing on a specific biology branch makes the project more likely to be successful.

We also included a characteristic that cannot be directly influenced, which is the region in which the students defend their project. The specific teacher, often the advisor, or one of them, is also connected to the region (particular school). Enthusiastic teachers are known for their strong support of their students in studying the subject and participating in competitions. As shown in an example of the Mathematics Olympiad, the influence of a teacher can be traced even from statistics showing, for example, an increase in Olympiad winners’ numbers from one school after one teacher got a job there, or a similar decrease in Olympiad winner numbers after retiring an enthusiastic teacher (Karp, 2003). This pattern in which students from a few teachers are consistently among the top ones is also known from the national round of the Czech Biology Olympiad (data not published).

The role of a supervisor and other adults in projects’ success

The mentioned criteria for success are likely interconnected and suggest that the key driver of success is the involvement of an expert supervisor. The role of the supervisor was scrutinised especially in relation to the acquirement of the university degree (Abiddin et al., 2009; Grohnert et al., 2024). However, to our knowledge, there is only a little bit of data related to the supervision of undergraduate students (Roberts & Seaman, 2018), and no data was collected about the supervision of projects performed by high school students. While we expect that basic findings about project supervision will be similar to the high school projects, it is no wonder that projects with supervisors have higher success potential since project management involves many activities that may stay hidden for a student who has no previous experience with projects. Among such activities are the selection of an interesting research topic, planning the research, identifying and acquiring the resources, managing the project, conducting the research, carrying out a literature review, analysis and interpretation of data, writing the thesis, defending during the competition and possibly also preparation for the following publication in a form of leaflets, research article, or tourist information table (Piccinin, 2000). It is not easy to understand and adjust the time schedule that already involves high school studies to the complex project so the help of the supervisor is beneficial on multiple levels such as the provision of the material, equipment, and resources, critical analysis of the work, help with the methodological problems and also encouragement (Haksever & Manisali, 2000). In Czechia, it is becoming common for high school projects to be part of the regular curriculum. A short scientific thesis that students should work on for several months under the supervision of a teacher is often a necessary part of the successful end of high school studies. The role of a supervisor of projects that are nominated to the science fair can be among others held by a motivated teacher or by a professional scientist both usually having experience with supervising projects of students. Schools can vary widely in their support for motivated teachers and, through them, motivated pupils. In Czechia, the family socioeconomic background has a significant influence on school success and future career choices. Also, pupils from families with higher socioeconomic status are more likely to study gymnasium (high schools that provide a general background to their students intending to prepare them for university education) and enter it early compared to vocational school (PAQ research, n.d.; Straková, 2010). Similarly, students of parents with a higher level of education and attending private schools were typical participants in Science fairs (Czerniak & Lumpe, 1996).

No analysis addresses these characteristics and investigates whether they make a project successful. We are also not aware of a study mapping a possible change in the student’s choices about focus (biology field) and preferences for collecting data in the field versus in the laboratory over time. We believe these two last characteristics have the potential to show whether students’ projects follow general trends in biology. In this case, molecular and laboratory methods became an integral part of biology research and are used even in the case of branches that used to be typically studied only in the field.

We believe that showing such relations and trends can point to more general trends relevant to science education and also help students and teachers plan and conduct a successful project. From the characteristics that cannot be influenced by participants or their teachers, we explore the possible influence of the region on the ranking.

Aims

To help improve project procurement and development practices, we aimed to identify the key characteristics of successful competition projects and to find out if the project rating depends on the region where the students come from. A secondary aim was to map possible changes in project characteristics over the 10 years in light of developments in biology and the resulting greater representation of laboratory methods in research.

More specifically, our goal was to answer the following research questions.

1. Did the following factors: future research suggestions, statistics used, publication of the results, cooperation with professionals, data source, and biology branch influence the overall ranking of the project?

2. Did the county where the participant came from influence the ranking of the project?

3. What is the main data source (laboratory versus field) of the projects and has it changed over the 10 years?

4. What is the relative representation of the individual biological branches and has it changed over the 10 years?

Methods

Out of all projects (that is, approximately 1280 scientific projects in 8 scientific fields of SPA over the selected 10 years), we decided to specifically study biology projects because this dataset is sufficiently big for statistical analysis, and it is also complete (i.e. it covers all projects belonging to one field). Involving projects from other fields would exceed our capacity for processing the data and it would bring even more scientific questions related to the comparison of the different fields which would be above the scope of one research article. To find answers to our research questions, we analysed the documentation of the available biology projects. In most of the cases, only a summary of the project was available. We tested the influence of factors selected as representing immersion in the project and holistic grasp of the topic, such as future research suggestions, statistics used, publishing the results, and cooperation with professionals, together with factors we expected to change over time: the main data source, biology discipline, and county where the participant came from in the overall ranking of the project. The possible influence of the type of school (gymnasium or vocational) on the ranking was also tested. We further tested whether the data source representation changed over time.

Czech science fair

The Students’ Professional Activities (SPA) competition in Czechia is a competition with a tradition since 1978 in which high school students can compare their long-term scientific projects from diverse fields of interest. SPA is widely recognised by teachers, institutions, and the public (National Pedagogical Institute of the Czech Republic, n.d.a) as it is financially supported and announced by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic. Some public Czech universities accept authors with the best SPA projects without entrance interviews. The competition is organised at the school, district, county and national levels, so it has a wide reach and offers the opportunity for a wide range of students to conduct their own projects. If participants advance from previous rounds, they are invited to the national round. The areas covered by SPA encompass all subjects from engineering, mathematics, natural sciences to human sciences and culture.

There are 14 counties in Czechia and each of them is represented by at least one participant in each competition field in the national round. Two more projects are included based on the recommendation of regional commissions (being ‘wild cards’ nearly as good as the first project in the county), so there is a maximum of 16 participants in the national round for each competition field, typically two counties represented by two projects instead of one. The projects are ranked from 1 for the best to 16 for the last in each competition field. The best students qualify for international project competitions.

Dataset

In this study, all biology projects (with information available) from the national rounds of Czech Students’ Professional Activities were analysed, namely projects that were presented over the last ten years before Covid-19, i.e. 32nd–41st, years 2009/2010–2018/2019. These projects were defended in four different competition fields (Biology; Healthcare; Agriculture, food and forestry, and water management, hereinafter referred to as Agriculture; Environmental protection and creation, hereinafter referred to as Environmental protection), making the total number of projects which may have biological focus 16*4*10 = 640. In the Biology competition field, all projects were included. Of the other fields (Healthcare, Agriculture, and Environmental protection), only projects focused on biological problems were taken into account, while projects focused on specific health or agriculture procedures, food products, or surveys about patient feelings were not analysed. All information about the projects was taken from the registration forms that must be filled out by the student before participating in the national round. Projects that were not available as a full version on the Internet and for which it was not possible to trace the paper application were evaluated based on the title. Only the projects whose titles were too general (i.e. not specified for a specific area of the problem that the student was dealing with) were not evaluated (e.g. the title of the thesis: Abortion).

Each project was characterised by its general criteria such as year of defending, competition field, county, name of the school where the student came from, branch of biology (some branches had to be merged to increase expected frequencies resulting in the following branches: zoology, cell biology, botany, ecology, microbiology, and others), and rating (See supplemental material for dataset). Further criteria were defined based on the type of work (including laboratory, only fieldwork), methods used with a special focus on the fact if the statistical methods were included, results published in any form, e.g. scientific article, article in local newspapers, student conference, etc., and finally if specific further work was suggested. The projects were classified into biology branches by the authors according to their focus. The branches that occurred less than five times (parasitology, bioinformatics, virology) were pooled in the ‘other’ category. There were a few projects with missing information that could not be retrospectively found. These cases were described as ‘not specified’.

To test whether the criteria were chosen unambiguously, two independent evaluators applied the criteria. The applied criteria for each category were tested on 15 randomly chosen projects from the data set of the three best projects of each year (National Pedagogical Institute of the Czech Republic, n.d.b) by two independent evaluators. There were no differences in their categorisation, so we concluded that the categories were straightforward.

Statistics

Differences were considered statistically significant if the test level achieved (p) was less than the selected 5% level of significance (p < 0.05).

The possible effect of defined criteria on project ranking was tested as follows. Criteria with two factors (usage of statistical methods, cooperation with experts from institutions, suggestion of specific further work) were tested by the Mann–Whitney test. Multifactorial criteria (county) were tested using the Kruskal–Wallis test. For nominal criteria (cooperation and laboratory versus field), Pearson’s chi-square was used. To test a possible trend in the approach to data collection (laboratory vs. field) over the decade, the Cochran–Armitage trend test was used. Analysis and graphs were performed in R v4.4.1 (R Core Team, 2021) and The Jamovi project (2022).

Dataset description

We started with 641 projects (the additional one was a non-competing host project) which entered the Students’ Professional Activities in the four given fields in the years 2009/2010–2018/2019. Of these, 287 projects were excluded from the analysis based on the criteria mentioned above, and the remaining 354 were further analysed. 11 of these projects were included only in the basic descriptions and excluded from detailed analyses because their detailed information was missing from the SPA database.

Results

All of the following results describe only the analysed projects defended in the competition field of Biology (N = 161), Healthcare (N = 58), Agriculture (N = 46), and Environmental protection (N = 89). Some of the authors acknowledged cooperation with different institutions, mainly universities (N = 24) and Czech Academy of Sciences (N = 23), followed by different local institutions such as museums (N = 21), and 7 authors cooperated with more than one institution.

Descriptive statistics

The authors came from all 14 Czech counties (which is a direct result of the rules). The numbers of projects in individual counties are shown in Table 1 together with county characteristics. The analysed projects were not distributed evenly among the counties as a result of some projects being excluded and also of the ‘wild cards’ projects. Most of the projects analysed were submitted from the Jihomoravský county followed by the capital Prague (Praha) and the Jihočeský county. These three counties are the only ones that host both a university with a biology programme and an institution of the Czech Academy of Sciences with a biology or medical focus. The Středočeský county in the next place does not have its university, but it surrounds the capital with eight universities and a wide range of biological and medical institutions, and commuting is a daily routine for many inhabitants. Five counties represented by the combination of the lowest number of projects and the lowest proportion of inhabitants with university education have neither a university with a biology programme nor an institution of the Czech Academy of Sciences with a biology or medical focus.

Table 1. Overlook of Czech counties.

County	Capital of county	Number of projects	Portion of inhabitants with university education	Number of universities	Biology at the university	Czech Academy of Sciences - biology
Jihomoravský	Brno	65	21.8	5	yes	yes
Praha (capital)	Prague	38	35.9	8	yes	yes
Jihočeský	České Budějovice	29	15.9	2	yes	yes
Středočeský	Prague	25	17.9	0	no	yes
Moravskoslezský	Ostrava	25	16.4	3	yes	No
Zlínský	Zlín	24	16.3	1	no	No
Ústecký	Ústí nad Labem	23	11.3	1	yes	No
Vysočina	Jihlava	22	14.2	1	no	No
Olomoucký	Olomouc	21	16.5	1	yes	No
Královéhradecký	Hradec Králové	21	14.7	1	yes	No
Plzeňský	Pilsen	19	15.4	1	yes	No
Liberecký	Liberec	18	14.2	1	no	No
Pardubický	Pardubice	14	14.6	1	no	No
Karlovarský	Karlovy Vary	10	10.5	0	no	No

Notes: The administrative capital, number of projects accepted for the SPA national round, portion of county’s inhabitants with university education, number of universities within the region, presence of biology or medical programme taught at the universities, and presence of an institution of Czech Academy of Science with biology or medical focus.

Compiled with the use of Czech Statistical Office (2021) and Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (n.d.).

Over one-fourth of the projects included statistics, and nearly one-fourth was published. Over half of the authors suggested a possible focus for future research, Table 2.

Table 2. The numbers of projects that used statistics were published and suggested future research.

No of projects	Statistics used	Published	Future research suggested
Yes	94 (27%)	82 (23%)	201 (57%)
No	234 (66%)	246 (69%)	127 (36%)
Not specified	26 (7%)	26 (7%)	26 (7%)

Another aspect analysed was the main approach to data collection. We distinguished two categories of data sources, that is, field observations and experiments (n = 131) and experiments that included laboratory (n = 198); the data source could not be specified for 25 projects. Most of the projects (82%, n = 289) were carried out by gymnasia students compared to 18% (n = 18) projects of vocational school students.

Relationship between the project ranking and its characteristics

The projects in which the authors suggested future research were ranked better compared to projects without such a suggestion (t = −2.4, p = 0.02, d_cohen = −0.28). The fact that the project included statistics also resulted in a better ranking (t = −5.2, p < 0.001, d_cohen = −0.65). The projects carried out in cooperation with professionals obtained a better ranking (t = 9.54; p < 0.001, d_cohen = 1.15). Projects that included a laboratory part were ranked better than projects carried out only in the field (t = −3.68, p < 0.001, d_cohen = 0.43). Cell biology projects obtained a significantly higher ranking than other branches except microbiology (F = 4.72; p < 0.001), see Figure 1. Publishing the project was not related to project ranking.

Figure 1. Ranking of projects according to branches of biology.

In addition to the higher probability of better ranking, the projects carried out in cooperation were more likely to be laboratory ones, focused on cell biology or microbiology, more likely used statistics. Students with zoology and ecology projects cooperated with institutions less than expected (p < 0.001). The suggestion of future research focus was not influenced by the cooperation of the project author with an institution (p = 0.84).

Relationship between the projects’ ranking and the county

The projects of the authors of Jihomoravský county (Southern Moravia) were significantly more likely to receive ratings 1st – 3rd than the projects conducted by the authors from six other counties (Vysočina, Zlínský, Moravskoslezský, Pardbický, Středočeský, Ústecký); the probability of being in the top three positions was the same for the authors of the remaining 7 counties (F = 5.58; p < 0.001), Figure 2.

Figure 2. Ranking of projects according to the counties.

A closer look at the data from Jihomoravský county revealed that a single school provided 43% of the projects from the entire county. Therefore, we looked deeper into the data for schools and teacher supervisors in all counties and additionally found 10 student projects focused on crayfish supervised by a teacher from a small town in Plzeňský county. These projects represented more than half of the projects in the Plzeňský county (N = 19). Three of them were also highly ranked despite no further cooperation with other experts.

The test of independence showed that the level of cooperation with experts is not at the expected level in all regions. It was significantly higher in the Jihomoravský county and significantly lower in the Ústecký and Středočeský county (χ² = 53.6; df = 13, p < .001).

The projects carried out by gymnasia students were more likely to be ranked higher compared to projects of vocational schools students (U = 6237; p = 0.01).

Data sources representation over 10 years

Projects that were at least partly carried out in the laboratory were increasingly represented over the analysed years (Z = −2.58, dim = 10, p-value = 0.005), see Figure 3.

Figure 3. Numbers of laboratory and field projects over the ten analysed years.

Biology branches in the projects

The most frequent branch of biology across all projects was zoology over the whole 10 years, the second most frequent one was cell biology, and the number of cell biology projects was increasing over time. The number of projects focused on other branches was stable over the years; only ecology appears to decrease in the past three years (Table 3).

Table 3. Biology branches over years.

Year	Zoology	Cell biology	Botany	Human biology	Ecology	Mycology	Microbiology	Others
32	15	3	3	4	5	0	2	0
33	10	3	7	3	4	0	2	1
34	13	5	4	1	5	0	4	0
35	11	3	7	4	6	0	5	0
36	10	7	8	3	6	1	3	1
37	8	5	6	0	7	1	0	0
38	10	11	5	1	7	0	3	1
39	8	8	3	0	5	2	5	1
40	11	8	6	3	4	1	5	0
41	14	9	9	2	2	0	2	0
Total	110	62	58	21	51	5	31	4

Limitations of the research

We are aware of the limitations of the research, namely the fact that we could not include 11 projects in the analysis because their details were missing in the SPA paper database. We believe that this does not change the results significantly, as it makes up approximately 3% of the analysed projects. For most of the projects, we could not analyse the full text. Instead, we used abstracts and forms summarising the project's information that are part of the paper applications for the science fair. Therefore, it is possible although unlikely that in some cases, information about e.g. cooperation or further project suggestions was missing.

There are 16 projects presented and evaluated in each SPA field in the national round each year. Although the evaluation and subsequent ranking of some projects are unambiguous (typically the best ones, the middle ones, and the ones with the worst evaluation), it happens that some projects are evaluated differently by different members of the commission and they could end up as, e.g. 10th, 11th, or 12th with similar likelihood.

One of the analysed characteristics and metrics of success was the publication of the projects in various forms. Is it likely that the results of some projects were published after the project's presentation in SPA, which might be the reason why project publication did not improve the ranking.

Discussion

We identified several characteristics typical for a successful biology project and gave an overview of the factors that influenced the ranking of the projects.

If participants carry out projects in cooperation with an expert, use statistics, focus on cell biology or microbiology, use laboratory methods in general, and include additional research suggestions, they have a higher likelihood of receiving a good ranking. All of these factors are likely to be interconnected. Cell biology and microbiology projects are more likely to be conducted in laboratories and therefore in cooperation with experts. When an expert supervises a project, he/she is likely to be the driver of the usage of statistics, and he/she might suggest it to include possible future research. Additionally, discussing the project with a supervisor leads to thinking about goals, methods, and conclusions, which could possibly mean deeper immersion in the project. Grinnell et al. (2018) also concluded that students who received help from scientists had an easier starting point, got their research idea more easily, had more access to scientific articles, and had fewer difficulties getting resources. They even suggested that science fairs should be divided into two sections: for those students who cooperate with scientists and those who do not, as these two groups are not comparable. In our opinion, a solution that leads to better learning and development of the research skills would be actively offering expert consultations, or even the topics of possible projects, to participants. Therefore, all students should know about the possibility of contacting an expert for supervision or consultation before starting their projects. Cooperating with scientists also leads to a better attitude toward them (Taylor et al., 2022), which could consequently lead to fewer gender stereotypes that are known to prevent girls from repeated participation (Steegh et al., 2021). However, publishing the results of the project (approximately 25% of the analysed projects) did not increase the likelihood of a better ranking, probably due to the fact that we used publishing as a very broad category, including everything from scientific papers, articles in local newspapers, leaflets, study materials for peers, to natural trail news. Although the publication of the results did not affect the ranking of the projects, we consider it beneficial both for society and the students themselves, as it increases their participation in society.

The ranking of the science fair participants was also influenced by the county they came from. The county with the highest probability of the best-ranked projects (Jihomoravský) was the one with the highest number of projects, but also with both universities with biology programmes and biological institutions of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the second highest proportion of people with university education and a higher than expected level of cooperation with experts. The other counties whose projects got higher ranking typically have a university with a biology programme. This suggests that physical proximity to collaborating experts from universities or the Academy of Sciences is an important factor influencing the likelihood of conducting a successful project. In general, cooperation with a local college is perceived as useful (DeClue et al., 2000). There were two exceptions. Karlovarský county with the lowest proportion of people with university education Czech Statistical Office (2021) and no university or Czech Academy of Sciences institution with a focus on biology. The reason why the participants of Karlovarský county are in general successful despite the lack of a university in the county can be explained by the fact that at least some of the successful participants travelled to different counties (eg Jihomoravský) to work on their projects. This was the case of the two students from Karlovarský county who both won the science fair (as the only winning participants from Karlovarský county in the ten-year dataset) and successfully represented Czechia at international science fairs studied universities abroad. The second exception is Liberecký county. However, we found no potential explanation for the high ranking of projects from Liberecký county. The projects from six remaining counties that were less often ranked in the first, second, and third place. The reasons can belong to one of the following categories: (i) the counties do not have a university with biological programmes; (ii) are between the counties with the lowest proportion of people with university education (below 12%). There was only one exception for the above-mentioned reasons, Moravskoslezský county.

As mentioned above, the highest number of projects came from Jihomoravský county (65) and interestingly more than 40% of these projects were solved in one school. From our previous experience with professional development courses for biology teachers, we know that there are at least two very active biology teachers (personal communication regarding professional development courses) in the aforementioned school in Jihomoravský county which even has a laboratory assistant, which is extremely unusual for such a type of Czech high school. This shows that there are individual teachers in certain schools who provide superior support to their students, leading to a higher likelihood of participating in SPA and a higher ranking of the project. In addition to the professionals of universities and scientific centres, teachers can also play an important role in motivating and mentoring high school students (Karp, 2003). This pattern in which students from a few teachers are consistently among the top ones is also known from the national round of the Czech Biology Olympiad (personal observation), and here we show it in the case of SPA. Appropriate support from teachers provides an opportunity to implement the project and participate in the science fair, even for students who would not be able to handle such a challenge on their own. Students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to go to a gymnasium (Straková, 2010), and our data shows that gymnasium students are more likely to conduct a high-ranked project probably thanks to their teachers. This points to potentially unequal access to science in Czechia.

Although the total number of projects accepted for the national round is constantly 16 in each category, in the past 10 years, there has been a significant increase in the number of projects using laboratory methods. Fieldwork projects are still represented, but their proportion has halved to about 30%. This may be due to the increased availability of laboratory methods and access to research laboratories supported by programmes such as ‘Open Science’ of the Czech Academy of Sciences Czech Academy of Sciences (n.d.), which publicly and financially support professional internships of high school students in professional workplaces – mainly laboratories. Students often use their projects developed within these internships as a project for SPA, and the ‘Open Science’ programme was recognised in several projects analysed in this study.

At the same time, projects that focused on the most popular branch of biology, ie, zoology (Janštová et al., 2022; Uitto et al., 2006) more often contain a laboratory part nowadays compared to the previous years. However, the increase is not necessarily a question of abandoning field projects, but the methodology expands also, at least in laboratories. The second most common biology branch of the SPA projects was human biology, again consistent with the preferences found by (Uitto et al., 2006), (Janštová et al., 2015) in the case of high school students interested in biology, and (Janštová & Novotný, 2017) in the case of pre-service biology teachers. Zoology and human biology are consistently more popular than other branches of biology such as botany (Strgar, 2007).

Conclusion

Based on the results presented in this study, we identified the key aspects of successful biology projects at the science fair. We conclude that students with the appropriate guidance from teachers or other expert supervisors are more likely to make and present a better-ranked project. Additionally, participants from counties with public universities that offer a biology programme were more likely to receive a higher ranking than projects of participants from other counties.

The development of molecular techniques, which are now a part of nearly all branches of biology, has also been reflected in the significant increase in the representation of laboratory projects in the national round of SPA over the past decade. Similarly, the number of cell biology projects has increased over the past decade.

We would like to draw a few recommendations for teachers and organisers who are interested in out-of-school science activities and competitions. The influence of a teacher can be traced even on the level of the national round of the science fair. Teachers should be encouraged to support their students in developing projects, followed by participating in a science fair. Such experience can increase your interest in science with all the consequences, such as future career choices. To make science fairs more open to all types of students, schools should include long-term student projects in their curriculum and recommend the best for participation in science fairs. In addition, schools or SPA should also work as information centres that can direct students toward professional supervisors. In the case of biology, these could be the employees in local museums, people working for environmental organisations or state institutions (e.g. protected landscape areas, national parks), or scientists from universities and science centres. The latter can be supported by introducing students to the concept of a Czech ‘Open Science’ programme whose objective is to connect professional scientists with high school students. This leads us to conclude that cooperation between high school students and science experts from different institutions, such as universities, the Academy of Sciences, museums, national parks, and other protected areas, should be encouraged, officially recognised, and valued as it benefits all. Students are better introduced to real science, and as a result, they are more likely to understand its value for society and possibly to become scientists themselves.

Ethics statement

Because the study did not work with the respondents but with available documents and publicly available projects’ ranking, according to the rules of the ethics committee of the Faculty of Science, Charles University its opinion was not necessary. Further information about the participants mentioned above is publicly available.

Data deposition

The data that support the findings of this study are available as a Supplemental online material.

Supplemental online material

The dataset.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Miroslava Fatková for her help in accessing the project database.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).