When I was 16, I participated in the Montgomery County, Maryland science fair. My entry was–as I recognized even at the time–a fairly middling effort, more a research project than an original experiment. I was not surprised when I walked away with an appropriately middling “honorable mention” in my category. It was an inspiring experience anyway, for reasons that are perceptively captured in the marvelous new documentary Science Fair.
The culture of the science fair is one of profound optimism, marked by a sense of common purpose more than a sense of competition. I was certainly a little jealous of the more ambitious projects I saw all around me, but mostly I was awed by the brainpower on display, the vast range of problems that kids my age were trying to solve (or at least to understand a little better). Science Fair, the movie, fully embraces these themes as it follows nine budding researchers from around the world working their way to the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the largest competition of its kind.
The resulting documentary is, in the words of co-director Cristina Costantini, “a love letter to the subculture that saved me.” She herself was an ISEF participant in her teens. That love for the science fair culture radiates from the screen, and so too does her generous affection for the can-do nerdiness of the competitors and their mentors. The competitive aspect of ISEF gives Science Fair a taut dramatic edge. Less expected, the film also crackles with humor, much of it springing from the students’ mix of self-aware insights and guileless enthusiasm. All the elements add up to an inspiring but also joyous experience.
Science Fair the movie, like science fair the cultural event, is a welcome antidote to the small-minded cynicism and anti-science attitudes so much on display these days. I had a chance to speak with Costantini, as well as two of the stars of her movie: Kashfia Rahman (a high-school competitor from South Dakota) and Serena McCalla (a research teacher from Jericho High School in Long Island, who has helped nine of her students get into ISEF). A lightly edited version of our conversation follows:
