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KENNETH LAFFERTY HESS FAMILY CHARITABLE FOUNDATION
Also Known As: Science Buddies
PO Box 5038 Carmel, CA 93921

GENERAL INFORMATION

Who We Are

Science Buddies, the operating name of the Kenneth L. Hess Family Foundation, seeks to enrich science education by providing tools to encourage hands-on science projects..

• This organization is a 501(c)(3) private nonoperating foundation . However, it has notified the IRS of its intention to convert to a public charity, and the IRS has ruled that grantors and contributors may consider it a public charity for the purpose of making contributions to the organization.
• This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990-PF.
• Additional narrative information in this report was last supplied by the organization on February 26, 2009.
• Contributions are deductible, as provided by law.

How to Help

This organization is seeking funds from contributions and grants. These funds will be used for unrestricted operating expenses, special projects and endowments.

Location(s) Served

• National
• International: Canada and other nations where English is spoken

NTEE Code

• T99—Other Philanthropy, Voluntarism, and Grantmaking Foundations N.E.C.
• O99—Other Youth Development N.E.C.
• B99—Education N.E.C.

Chief Executive

Kenneth L. Hess

Chief Executive Profile

Kenneth L. Hess is the creator of Science Buddies. Mr. Hess envisions increasing youth participation in science fairs as the catalyst to reversing America's increasing deficit of science and engineering professionals. As the founder and president of Banner Blue Software from 1984 to 1996, he sold over two million copies of Family Tree Maker to help users locate and organize information about their ancestors. Prior to Banner Blue, Ken held manufacturing and marketing positions at Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and Symantec. In 1974 he graduated from Stanford with a BS in Engineering with Distinction. In 1978 Ken received a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard. Currently, Ken pursues a number of business and public service activities.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

MISSION AND PROGRAMS

Mission

In 2001, founder Ken Hess became interested in helping more kids get involved in the wonderful learning experience of science fair. Ken felt that many of the obstacles getting in the way of students doing hands-on science projects could be addressed through a collection of creative online resources and tools that would go far beyond a printed guide on a how to do a science fair project. We discovered what kind of help students and teachers really need, and we responded by developing innovative tools like our interactive Topic Selection Wizard and clever resources such as our huge library of cool science fair project ideas conceived and written by real scientists. Another big draw to our website is our advice forum where kids can get fast answers to their science questions from science and engineering professionals. Preparing a science fair project is an excellent example of the highly effective technique education experts call active learning or inquiry; indeed, active learning is recommended as a cornerstone of successful STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education. Yet, according to the National Research Council, active learning is not employed often enough, and its absence is one of the key factors behind kids losing interest in science and not performing to their potential. Science Buddies addresses this deficit by providing the tools and support that make it easy for students and busy or inexperienced teachers to tackle hands-on science projects.

Programs

The common theme running among all Science Buddies programs is the goal of identifying specific student needs (e.g. 'I need help selecting a topic for my project') and creating solutions (not just reading material) that actively engage students and scientific professionals. Key Science Buddies web-based resources and programs include: * Project Ideas -- an online library of more than 800 Project Ideas. Authored by our staff scientists, these detailed outlines guide students to develop challenging science fair projects. * Ask an Expert -- a staff-monitored online advice forum where scientists, engineers, and talented science students guide students who are doing science projects. They answer questions from students anywhere on a drop-in basis. AAE helps students when they don't have a parent, teacher or other adult with the knowledge or time to help them. * Topic Selection Wizard -- an interactive interview tool that helps students identify an area of science, math, or engineering that suits their interests * Teacher Resources -- a robust selection of classroom aids, planning tools, and teaching guides to help teachers guide students in doing hands-on science projects. We also publish a regular newsletter. * The Project Guide -- a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to doing science research with sample assignments, photos of science fair projects, tips for success, and self-grading guides

Additional Comments from the Organization

Each year, Science Buddies identifies needs within the educational community, and proactively designs solutions to meet these needs. We are gratified to hear from teachers who have had success with our services. Here is a sample of what satisfied teachers have to say about Science Buddies: "Science Buddies was very helpful to my students in preparing them for the Science Fair. They were able to find ideas and directions for their projects. I will use it again next year!" Koren Donnor, Teacher, Jessup Elementary School, Jessup, MD "I used Science Buddies to suggest to my students that they may find in helpful in developing science fair projects and/or using suggestions from the website. What I found particularly beneficial about that aspect of the site was that it ranked the projects in terms of difficulty. This made it easy to navigate through the wide range of suggested activities. I also recommended to my nephew who enjoys science and experimenting a great deal." Phil Marvin, Teacher, Hebron Avenue School, Glastonbury, CT "I think Science Buddies is a wonderful reference. I used it last year as a reference for some of my kids and they loved it. The layout and organization of the website is very well thought-out. It's also kid-friendly, and that's a plus." William McKinney, Teacher, River Pines Elementary School, Humble, TX

GOALS AND RESULTS

Accomplishments for Fiscal Year Ending December 31, 2008

1. We served a diverse audience of more than 9 million students across the U.S. and in other English-speaking countries. More than half of our visitors our girls, and our users come from all geographic locations, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
2. We completed a major upgrade of our Topic Selection Wizard, making it one of the most sophisticated recommender engines on the web. Now, our TSW is able to even more accurately predict which projects will spark students' imagination and interest. We also added three new Interest Areas and created 150 new Project Ideas.
3. Science Buddies was honored with a 2008 Parents' Choice Award in the website category. The Parents' Choice Awards program honors the best material for children: books, toys, music and storytelling, magazines, software, video games, television, and websites. Parents' Choice Foundation's panels of educators, scientists, performing artists, librarians, parents and, yes, kids themselves, identify the very best products for children of different ages and backgrounds, and of varied skill and interest levels.

Objectives for Fiscal Year Beginning January 1, 2009

1. Overall, Science Buddies seeks to increase the number of students and teachers we serve while simultaneously improving the quality of resources we deliver.

Self Assessment

Given our extensive background in software development, Science Buddies has sophisticated means to track and improve our resources. We can measure the relative satisfaction of our materials not only by the number of visitors each page receives, but in many cases also by the time spent on the page, the number of times it was printed or emailed to a friend, and the amount of discussion in our advice forums or through direct user contact. Using our TSW registration database, we can track not only user demographics but also popularity, satisfaction rates, and student feedback about our Project Ideas. And, we can easily analyze activity levels and mentor responsiveness and quality of advice in our Ask an Expert program. Unsolicited feedback from teachers is valuable at a general level, and we supplement that feedback with visits to many science fairs where we can see our project ideas "in action."

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