The rules pertaining to pre-college science research (https://student.societyforscience.org/international-rules-pre-college-science-research) serve as regulations for WaCSEF high school projects and guidelines for WaCSEF JUNIOR HIGH projects.

It remains common sense that the student and all teachers, parents, mentors and responsible adults involved in the supervision of the student completing a project engage in safe and ethical practices. In all cases WaCSEF will default to ISEF rules and guidelines when in dispute.

Junior high projects do not need to submit a research plan prior to attending the WaCSEF JH. However, they must submit a PROJECT COMPLETION SUMMARY form when they arrive that contains information and signature of the responsible adult that supervised the student’s work. If that work utilized hazardous materials, potentially pathogenic organisms, human subjects, vertebrate animals or anything that is potentially dangerous to the student then a qualified adult must be involved.

Responsible Adult: Any adult over the age of 21 that can reasonably determine the appropriateness of the student’s project. This is usually but is not limited to a parent, teacher, neighbor, or relative that can, for example, read the safety instructions on a bottle of bleach or safely supervise the student cutting balsa wood for a bridge engineering model.

Qualified Adult: For JH purposes a qualified adult is someone with greater than average knowledge of the potentially hazardous subject used by the student. Example may include but are not limited to:

• The growing of bacteria in culture must be done in a bio safety 2 lab under supervision of someone who knows safe culturing techniques.
• A privacy survey of pre-teens needs to be reviewed by an adult that understands legal and ethical survey parameters.
• Administering varying doses of caffeine to a hamster would require a veterinarian or vet-tech’s oversight.

Safety WaCSEF JH will specifically be concerned about projects utilizing the following:

• Open electrical circuits
• Lasers
• Vertebrate animals
• Culturing of microorganisms
• Surveys
• Human subjects
• Caustic substances
• Power saws, drills and other potentially dangerous tools
• Animal behavior modification
• Any federally regulated materials like prescription drugs, alcohol, tobacco and firearms

Ethics and Academic Integrity Scientific fraud and misconduct are not condoned at any level of research or competition. This includes 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 WaCSEF.

With the increasing availability of online resources, we recognize that the internet is a resource, however we strive to uphold academic integrity at WaCSEF. The following are examples of academic integrity violations that are grounds for disqualification:

• Plagiarism – presenting the work of others as one’s own, without acknowledging the source. Scientific work includes scientific results, conceptual development of a topic, or substantive formulation or reformulation of a problem. This includes work done by a family member or a mentor.
• Fabricating or falsifying data.
• Forging signature(s)
• Fabricating or falsifying registration information.
• Entering a project, which is derived from a previous project, without documenting the previous work.