Competitions and Leadership Opportunities
Regeneron - International Science and Engineering Fair
For more than 70 years, thousands of students from our affiliated science fair network have explored their passion for scientific inquiry at the world’s largest global science competition for high schoolers, the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). Each year, students from more than 75 countries, regions and territories compete in ISEF across 21 different STEM disciplines.
Currently sponsored by Regeneron, ISEF awards nearly $8 million in prizes and scholarships to high school scientists each year, with a top prize of $75,000. Two films released in 2018, Inventing Tomorrow and Science Fair, documented several students’ pathways to ISEF and their experiences during the weeklong competition. Filmed at Regeneron ISEF 2022, National Geographic’s Science Fair: The Series follows several U.S. and international students as they navigate their way to ISEF.
Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge
Our premier middle school STEM competition for U.S. students in grades sixth through eighth, first launched in 1999 thanks to a partnership with Discovery Communications, Inc. as the Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge (DCYSC), which ran through 2007. In 2008, the Society continued the program as the Society Middle School Program, until Broadcom Foundation was named the title sponsor in 2010. The Broadcom MASTERS (Math, Applied Sciences, Technology and Engineering for Rising Stars) continued through 2022, awarding more than $100,000 in scholarships and prizes each year. In 2022, Thermo Fisher Scientific was named the new title sponsor of our middle school competition. The first Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge will take place in 2023.
Technology Student Association
The Technology Student Association (TSA) enhances personal development, leadership, and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), whereby members apply and integrate these concepts through intracurricular activities, competitions, and related programs.
The Technology Student Association (TSA), formerly the American Industrial Arts Student Association (AIASA), is the oldest student membership organization dedicated exclusively to students enrolled in technology and engineering education classes in middle and high schools. Its rich history spans more than four decades.
From 1958 to 1978, AIASA was a sponsored activity of the American Industrial Arts Association (AIAA). In 1978, the nonprofit corporation, AIASA, Inc., was formed to oversee AIASA as a separate organization. From 1978 to 1988, the organization grew in size, strength, structure, and impact on students and secondary school programs. In the summer of 1988, AIASA became the Technology Student Association.
Girls’ schools empower students to become bold leaders.
At girls’ schools, girls demonstrate great confidence in female leadership and become increasingly interested in leadership positions themselves. Data suggests that girls at coeducational schools actually become less interested in leadership positions with age.
—Dr. Katherine Kinzler, Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago and Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University
Programs at girls’ schools focus on the development of teamwork over other qualities of leadership, while the qualities of confidence, compassion, and resilience also ranked prominently.
—Dr. Nicole Archard, Student Leadership Development in Australian and New Zealand Secondary Girls’ Schools: A Staff Perspective
93% of girls’ school graduates say they were offered greater leadership opportunities than coeducated peers and 80% have held leadership positions since graduating from high school.
—Goodman Research Group, The Girls’ School Experience: A Survey of Young Alumnae of Single-Sex Schools