About Us

Organization

The Kenneth Lafferty Hess Family Charitable Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, non-profit public charity founded in 1995. In 2001, the Foundation began its sole operating program: Science Buddies. Science Buddies is located in the San Francisco Bay Area, but serves millions of students from all over the United States and the world.

Mission

Hands-on scientific investigations are acknowledged to be the best way to teach science literacy. Science Buddies supports these activities by providing free science fair project ideas, answers, and tools to teachers, parents, and students from all walks of life. Our objective is to save our users' time while guiding them to a successful outcome.

By reducing the hassles of doing a science fair project, Science Buddies aspires to improve project quality and increase science fair participation, turning a good learning experience into a great one.

Overview of Programs

The common theme running among all Science Buddies programs is the goal of identifying specific student needs (e.g. "I need help selecting a topic for my project") and creating solutions (not just reading material) that actively engage students and scientific professionals. Our programs focus on:

• Involving science and technology professionals to interact directly and indirectly with the students, making science real.
• Leading students to projects that are more challenging and have a higher science content than projects they might choose on their own.
• Saving students time and frustration: students WANT to use our tools because they save them time and make science research more fun.

We offer a number of resources for students and teachers:

1. The Science Fair Project Guide is an online encyclopedia for how to do science research and science fair projects. It includes step-by-step guidance, actual sample assignments, photos of science fair projects, tips for success, and self-grading checklists for students.
2. The Topic Selection Wizard (TSW) is an immensely popular, interactive tool that helps students to explore different topic areas for their science fair project. First, the tool leads students through a series of plain English questions to help them determine science fields of true interest to them. Then the tool analyzes student responses to provide a custom-tailored selection of science fair Project Ideas. Project Ideas are developed either in house by Science Buddies' staff scientists or by science professionals who collaborate with Science Buddies. Each Project Idea includes a description of the subject matter, bibliographic references, locations of Internet-based public domain tools and/or real-time scientific data, and suggestions for experiments.
3. Ask an Expert (AAE) is a monitored, online forum staffed by volunteer scientists and talented science students who help students anywhere, on a drop-in basis, with their project questions. AAE is a great way for a student to get help when they don't have a parent, teacher or other adult with the knowledge, time, or desire to help them. When students have such help, they have more fun doing their science fair project, undertake more challenging experiments, learn more, and generally develop a more positive interest in science. AAE also offers a searchable database of past questions and answers so that other students may benefit from past discussions.

   Science Buddies also conducts the Classroom Scientists Program, formerly called our Ask an Expert Mentoring Program, in which we match 2–3 volunteer mentors with a specific classroom of students and they work together over the science fair season in a private mentoring forum. Please note: The Classroom Scientists Program will not be in operation during the 2007-2008 school year.

4. The Teacher Resources section includes information to help teachers guide their students to do research projects or conduct a science fair.

Additional Information about the Kenneth Lafferty Hess Family Foundation

We also participate on GuideStar, the on-line standard for nonprofit accountability. To find our listing, you must first register with GuideStar to obtain a free basic account. Then type either Kenneth Lafferty Hess or Science Buddies into the search field. The listing is titled 'Kenneth Lafferty Hess Family Charitable Foundation' (our legal name) and notes Science Buddies as our "Also Known As" name.

For more information or to discuss a donation, contact Courtney Corda: courtney@sciencebuddies.org