Science fairs date back to 1942, when William Emerson Ritter and Edward W. Scripps created " The Science Talent Search " for high school students. The first American National Science Fair was won by Alan J. Fletcher when he was 18, winning with a display on the laws of motion . In the United States , science fairs became popular in the early 1950s. Interest in the sciences was at a new high after the world witnessed the use of the first two atomic weapons and the dawn of television . As the decade progressed, science stories in the news, such as Jonas Salk 's vaccine for polio and the launch of Sputnik , brought science fiction to reality and attracted increasing numbers of students to fairs.