Outside the individual classroom or school level, students have additional opportunities to participate in competitive science fairs. Any student or pair of students may register to compete at the regional science fair level. The Regina Regional Science Fair is held annually at the end of March or the beginning of April. There are several benefits of participating in competitive science fairs:
- Interaction with judges:The Regina Regional Science Fair recruits a number of volunteer judges from various areas of the community, primarily science professionals and professors from the university. Students have the opportunity to present their ideas and work to these judges and receive feedback from them. This provides enrichment of learning and possibly further research opportunities.
- Prizes:All Regional Science Fairs, including the Regina Regional Science Fair, offer a variety of prizes. Including divisional awards, which are the gold, silver, and bronze medals given for top projects, there are a variety of sponsored awards donated by various community organizations that support science. Sponsored awards are usually monetary in nature, and a project must fulfill specific criteria to win a sponsored award. For example, a project which deals with sustainability of ecosystems may be eligible for an environmental award.
- Application for Scholarships and Jobs: regional or higher-level (see below) science fair participation is used as an indicator of future academic and professional success, and this can be received well by persons in charge of awarding scholarships or making hiring decisions. Several businesses in the high-tech sector use previous science fair participation as a method of short-listing job applicants. Extra-curricular involvement such as participation in a regional or higher-level fair is often a criterion for scholarship application as well. Participation in a Saskatchewan Regional Science Fair, such as the Regina Regional Science Fair specifically allows a 1 st year science or engineering student to apply for a Saskatchewan Science Fair Entrance Scholarship to the University of Regina , valued at $850.
- Advancement to Higher Level Fairs: The top winners at a regional science fair are selected to attend the Canada Wide Science Fair (CWSF), which is held in a different city every year in the middle of May. At the CWSF, about 450 students from across Canada are given the opportunity to interact with each other. A large variety of leisure and enrichment activities are provided for the students; during the course of the trip, including two days of judging where student can interact with judges from the host city as well as from across Canada. At the CWSF both divisional and sponsored awards have monetary value. Some of these awards include entrance scholarships to universities in Canada .
Winning a gold medal at the CWSF allows a student (or pair of students) to apply to Team Canada and attend the Intel-sponsored International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) the following year. ISEF is held annually in the United States in the middle of May, and students from all over the world attend ISEF to work with, learn from, and compete with each other and interact with international judges. Like CWSF, all ISEF awards have monetary value.
