Alameda County Science and Engineering Fair
Rules & Guidelines
Carefully read the Eligibility, General Rules for project research, display and safety, Student Researchers and Tips. If you are new to science fair be sure to visit EACH of the TIPS links to learn all there is to know from getting a topic to writing an abstract etc. The information and links below are designed to give you guidance through your project AND help insure your success at ACSEF.
Am I eligible to participate at ACSEF?
1. All students competing in the fair must adhere to all eligibility and participation rules as set forth by ACSEF
2. All grade 6-12 students attending school or homeschooled in Alameda County are eligible to participate at the fair with some allowable modifications (see documents below).
3. Students younger than 20 years old who attend a school or are homeschooled in Alameda County & are in grades 6–12 are eligible to attend the fair providing they meet all appropriate eligibility criteria.
Please review following documents for General Eligibility, Project Rules, Ethics, Roles, and FAQs.
General Rules of ACSEF
Expectations
The Alameda County Science & Engineering is an international science fair affiliated fair. We follow the International Science Fair Rules and Guidelines and expect all students to read and abide by the following ethics statement:“Scientific fraud and misconduct are not condoned at any level of research or competition. Such practices include plagiarism, forgery, use or presentation of other researcher’s work as one’s own, and fabrication of data. Fraudulent projects will fail to qualify for competition in ACSEF and subsequent affiliated fairs. ACSEF reserves the right to revoke recognition of a project subsequently found to have been fraudulent.”
Conduct
Students who have their projects removed from competition for fraud or misconduct may not enter the ACSEF nor be eligible for any other Society of Science and the Public sponsored competition to which the project was promoted in the current year. Nor will the student(s) be eligible to enter ACSEF the following year.
Proposals
The SRC/IRB teams and Director may, upon review of submitted Project proposals and paperwork disqualify any project that does not follow the international science fair rules and guidelines, due to poor quality, incompleteness, or inappropriateness of project content, does not adhere to minimum quality standards or is on the projects to avoid list or meets the criteria of projects to avoid. Please adhere to these standards or your project will fail to qualify for competition.
Deadlines
All deadlines must be adhered to. No exceptions.