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ConductScience Foundation

Program

The Advance Program

We buy research apparatus and give it to high schools outright. No cash changes hands, nothing to match, and the school keeps the equipment.

Why invertebrates

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Science fair rules require that student research on vertebrate animals be reviewed and approved before it begins, by a committee that includes a veterinarian or a qualified animal care provider. Most invertebrates fall outside that requirement. Cephalopods are the exception and are treated as vertebrates.

That makes flies and planaria the organisms a high school can most readily use for original behavior research. What is left is equipment, and a science department without a behavioral rig runs demonstrations instead of experiments.

That gap is what Advance fills.

What we fund

Behavioral apparatus that works with invertebrates in a classroom. We send equipment, not money.

Drosophila Y Maze

Two-choice behavioral assay for fruit flies. The rig in our first award.

Planaria Y Maze

Two-choice assay for planaria, which also supports regeneration work.

If your course needs apparatus not listed here, describe it in your application. We would rather fund the experiment your students want to run.

Who can apply

  • A secondary school in the United States with a science research course, magnet, or equivalent.
  • A named lead educator who will run the equipment with students.
  • An authorizing district official who can confirm the school will house and maintain it.
  • Capacity to store and maintain the apparatus between school years.

What we ask in return

  • Mention us as a sponsor when the work gets shown.
  • Send us a paragraph and a photo of the equipment in use, sometime in the next six to twelve months.
  • Follow the usual lab safety and animal care practices for this kind of work.

How to apply

  1. 01

    Tell us what is missing

    What your program cannot do right now, what students would do with the equipment, and where their work is headed — a science fair, a symposium, a paper.

  2. 02

    Get a signature from your school

    A principal or CTE director confirms the school can store and look after the equipment.

  3. 03

    We handle the district paperwork

    We issue a purchase order at no charge so your district can log the equipment in its inventory, even though we are the ones paying.

  4. 04

    One tax form

    A W-9 or your district's state tax-exemption certificate. Public districts do not usually have their own exemption letter, so either one is fine.

First award

A medical sciences magnet in New Jersey

The school runs an honors research course in which students design and conduct original inquiry-based experiments on live model organisms. The course is required in its medical sciences magnet program and is offered every year.

Its science program did not own enough Y-mazes for the projects students planned. Students shared rigs or reduced the number of trials, which cost them the repeated measurements a competitive project needs.

We awarded Drosophila Y-mazes for implementation in January 2026. Their impact report is due back to us this school year and will be published here.

Apply

Tell us about the course and what it is missing. A person reads every one of these.

If your district needs a paper form with a signature on it, email us and we will send one.

A couple of sentences. What your students cannot do right now, and what they would do with the equipment.