Your science project is complete only when you have done two more steps that have nothing to do with understanding nature and have everything to do with letting others understand you and what you have done.

The first of these steps is building your display. The second is your interview with the judges. There were several steps to doing a good Fair project described on "YOUR PROJECT" Page of this site. Your display will be best if it shows what you did at each step (in summary form, not in full detail).

Your display is a special way to "tell a story." Before you design your display be sure you understand what story you wish to tell. That means you need to show what you were trying to find out (your question), what you did to find out (your experiment), what results you got (your data), and, finally, what conclusions you reached.

The detailed description of all this will be in your research report. The display should show only the essence of each section, just enough to help anyone who quickly looks at your exhibit find out what it is all about. If you get the viewer's interest, then perhaps he or she will stop to study your research report in order to learn more.

Use photographs, graphs, and drawings, not just words.

Being clear is the whole aim. For example, judges like neat graphs, but they are not particularly impressed by computer drawn graphs (unless the computer was used to control the experiment and/or to make difficult calculations on the data before they could be graphed).

Although it definitely helps to be neat, you do not need to buy commercial letters or hire a graphic artist to help you. Please do check the spelling of everything on your display panels. Misspellings make a worse impression on the judges than poor lettering quality.

Add to your flat display boards some objects sitting on the table (your apparatus, perhaps, or a model of it if it is to valuable to display at the Fair).

Before you actually begin building anything, make a drawing of what your display will look like. Even build a model of the display if that helps you to see what it will be before you build it.

Have another person look at your drawing or model of the display. He or she can often tell you what is clear and what is not. Listen to him or her and make whatever changes you need to in order to make your display tell your story clearly.