The Project Fair is an annual event held on campus at Sage, celebrating the months-long interdisciplinary project for students in Grades 2, 3, and 4. The Project Fair creates opportunities for students to build STEM and​ ​literacy​ ​skills as students​ ​select their project ideas within an overriding theme. Throughout the project, students​ are supported in building the skills to ​define​ ​a​ ​narrow​ ​researchable​ ​question;​ ​design​ ​an​ ​experiment,​ ​prototype,​ ​or​ ​model; interview a client;​ ​create​ ​surveys; carry out an ​experiment; ​gather, analyze, and summarize​ ​data;​ ​and​ ​finally, present​ their project in a written​ ​and​ ​oral format.​

This project is highly scaffolded by teachers and aligned to each grade’s science curriculum, allowing the topic to shift and the challenge to increase as students progress through the grades. In Grade 2, students spend the year learning to make hypotheses based on their own questions and to understand the basic principles behind controlled experiments. Their projects must be an experiment, prototype, or both; unlike the rest of the students participating in Project Fair, Grade 2 students can limit their project to a prototype and do not have to include variables in their experimental design. In Third Grade, students learn the art of prediction. Throughout the year, they have learned how to explore questions and observations and build these explorations into a product. In Project Fair, third graders must create an experiment with elements that they can measure. Among other topics, throughout Fourth Grade, students learn about the systems of the human body. Using their background knowledge, students consider essential questions related to maintaining good health and well-being. In Project Fair, fourth graders must transform their questions and predictions into scientific experiments with multiple variables. Throughout Project Fair, students find their voice and passion by selecting their topics, learn how to make mistakes and work through challenges on the road to excellence, and build valuable communication and collaboration skills.