Volunteer Opportunities

Judge: Category or Special Award (Sign up for one date or both!)
Judge Sign Up
Work Timeline: Completed week of the Science and Engineering Fair
Commitment: up to 5 hours in week prior, full day on the day of fair (<15 hours total)
Contact: Judge Coordinator, Scott Ryals, NCDER (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
One week in advance of the fair judges will receive their category or special award assignment, an aligned scoring rubric/project criteria, and access to the project materials in their category or nominated for the special award they are judging in order to become familiar with the projects and brainstorm questions they may want to ask the students. An orientation training will be provided for judges this week.

On the day of the fair judges will interview students and record scores based on the rubric provided. After interviews judges will caucus with all judges in their category to determine the category/special award winners, reporting this information back to the State Fair Director.

The purpose of the science fair is to give young people the opportunity to be actively engaged in the scientific process of developing an idea, testing the idea and then drawing conclusions and ideas from the results. Along with your role as an evaluator of student projects, you will also have the job of reinforcing that purpose as well as encouraging, motivating, and even sometimes doing a little teaching. Even a participant whose project is of modest quality should feel a sense of accomplishment and be proud of what he or she did.

Moderators
Commitment: 7 hours
Moderators will be in judging rooms in Zoom along with a small group of judges. They will coordinate the welcoming of students, introductions, and timing of presentations. A moderator script will be provided. The moderators will communicate with room hosts via text to facilitate the change in students. Anticipated Hours 8:30AM-2:30PM with a 40 minute lunch break and 5 minute breaks hourly. Larger categories for judging may require volunteers through 3PM.

Zoom Category Host
Commitment: 7 hours
Zoom Category Hosts will need to be Zoom savvy, able to use breakout & chat features comfortably. The Category host will manage the main Zoom room where students join the meeting. Hosts will greet students upon arrival, add students to their judging room at the appropriate time, and remove students at the end of their judging session. A detailed script with speaking points will be provided for each host. The Zoom host will work closely with the moderators (who are in breakouts) to ensure that students are added/removed from breakouts based on judge readiness. The zoom host will have a tech support team to refer participants to if technical assistance is needed. Anticipated Hours 8:30AM-2:30PM with a 40 minute lunch break and 5 minute breaks hourly. Larger categories for judging may require volunteers through 3PM. A background check is required for Zoom Hosts.

Level 1 Tech support
Commitment: 7.5 hours
Volunteers in this role would be troubleshooting level 1 technical issues with students and the families of student participants. They will need to be comfortable supporting technical issues from a remote location and interacting with families of students. The primary focus of this support will be accessing Zoom and managing sound and video settings. Technical issues that need to be escalated will be sent on to a level 2 tech support team.Anticipated Hours 8:00AM-2:30PM with a 40 minute lunch break and 5 minute breaks hourly.

Level 2 Tech support
Commitment: 7.5 hours
Volunteers in this role would troubleshoot level 2 technical issues with students and the families of student participants, which have been escalated from level 1 support. They will need to be comfortable supporting advanced technical issues from a remote location and interacting with families of students. The primary focus of this support will be accessing Zoom and managing sound and video settings. Anticipated Hours 8:30AM-2:30PM with a 40 minute lunch break and 5 minute breaks hourly.

Sign up here for other volunteer roles for the 2022 NCSEF!

Contact Information

Volunteer Coordinator, Susan Morin, RTI (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Executive Director, Theresa Gibson (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)