SCIENCE FAIR – Review

Students entering International Science and Engineering Fair at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Photo courtesy of Univision and National Geographic

SCIENCE FAIR is a crowd-pleasing, entertaining look at a group of high schoolers competing for the top prize in an international science fair. And forget that baking soda “volcano” from grade school science fairs. These kids are doing real science, with research projects on real-world topics like the tackling the Zika virus, creating an improved stethoscope, and developing innovations in aeronautics.

Not kidding about the crowd-pleasing: SCIENCE FAIR won the Audience Choice Awards at both Sundance and SXSW. SCIENCE FAIR The film is a celebration of science kids, of geek culture in all its quirky and funny glory, but also of the smart kids who know how to work hard and will go on the have a real impact on out world.

The National Geographic documentary has a similar structure others about student competitions, for spelling bees or choirs or dance troupes, following a selection of young people as they prepare and finally participate in a top competition. Neither the audience nor the filmmakers know if the likable, talented kids they are spotlighting will win in the end, which is part of the excitement of these films. SCIENCE FAIR has an extra element that makes it even more intriguing: these young people are doing real science research and preparing for careers that can impact society directly. Spelling is important but it is hard to top finding a vaccine against the Zika virus.

It is that real world application that sets science fairs apart, and makes the kids featured so interesting. SCIENCE FAIR follows nine teenagers from diverse backgrounds, including two from other countries, as they work towards competing in the International Science and Engineering Fair. As smart, hard-working and creative as these kids are, there can be only one winner for Best in Fair.

Emmy-nominated filmmakers Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster selected an intriguing group of nine young people set on winning and fascinated by science and engineering. Some students submit projects as part of a team and others individually, and the film follows both teams and individuals. And of course, these are teens, so there is all the drama, rivalries and hormones of that age. The documentary also spotlights an inspiring teacher, Mrs. McCalla, who serves as a coach to several science fair hopefuls.

Anyone who as even gone to one of these high school science fairs know that these budding scientists are doing serious work, with months of experimental research represented in the small display space allotted to them. As the teens themselves explain, it is not just the research and analysis that matters but how that is presented.

Not surprisingly, students who attend high schools that specialize in science and engineering have an edge. The documentary follows two projects from one such school in Kentucky, one by a team of three boys and another by a determined young woman.

Anjali is kind of the veteran of the documentary, having entered science fairs before and strategizing her campaign like a general. A child prodigy who scored a perfect 36 on the ACT as a 13-year-old freshman, sophomore Anjali has a sparkling, outgoing personality and is working on an arsenic testing device, addressing a threat that can be found in some drinking water.

Ryan, Harsha and Abraham are seniors who has banded together to create what they hope will be a science fair winner, an electronic stethoscope that connects to a database of heart sounds, an advance on the traditional doctor’s instrument.

Other students come from schools with little or no interest in science, and have to work more on their own. Kashfia is a Muslim girl at a South Dakota high school that is much more about sports than science. The daughter of immigrants, she is socially isolated at school but a strong and self-reliant person focused on her educational goals. She finds unexpected ally in the football coach, who becomes her sponsor for the fair, and her well-educated immigrant parents provide the support and encouragement she needs.

Robbie is another student out of place, and one of the most interesting kids in the documentary. Living in West Virginia, he stands our like a giraffe in a herd of cows in his poor, rural community. A socially easy-going, mathematically-gifted computer whiz with quirky taste in clothes, Robbie finds little to interest him at his public school that is totally unprepared to educate gifted students like him. There is a heart-breaking scene where his math teacher tells about how he would ask her questions about advanced mathematical concepts, to which she responded by telling him to just focus on his homework. Not surprisingly, his grades are low even though his test scores are high, the hallmark of a gifted-student not challenged by an inadequate school. While his parents are emotionally supportive and committed to backing his ambitions but they lack the educational background and experience to do much more than cheer him on.

The three international students featured are a study in contrasts and must win their country’s science fairs to reach the International Science and Engineering Fair. One is a German boy, Ivo, with an enduring interest in aeronautics whose supportive parents and country provide him all the resources he needs for his project to redesign and improve an old single-wing aircraft. The other two are a team from Brazil, Myllena and Gabriel. The film focuses mostly on Myllena, a girl from a little rural village in an area of Brazil hard-hit by the Zika virus, Myllena’s family are poor farmers but they and her cash-strapped school do what they can to support her, as she and Gabriel work on their science project researching a solution to combat Zika.

SCIENCE FAIR is a total winner. We get wrapped up in the stories of these likable, brilliant kids, and cannot help but root for all of them, both at the science fair and in life. So often it is the athletes who get all the attention so it is a treat to see the smart kids get their chance to shine. The documentary opens Friday, Sept. 28, at the Plaza Frontenac Cinema.

RATING: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars