The Santa Cruz County Science Fair is a science fair held annually at the Santa Cruz County Fair Grounds. The top 10 students from elementary and junior high schools in Santa Cruz County are invited to participate, and high school students can enter projects into the fair without competing at their school science fair. The coordinator of the science fair is Nancy Serigstad. The primary sponsor of the fair is Seagate Technology, although it receives donations and volunteer judges from many local businesses and educational institutions.
Students from the Santa Cruz County Science Fair have been very successful at the California State Science Fair, which has resulted in much larger allocation of slots to Santa Cruz than one would expect based on population. The average allocation in 2009 was 24.7 projects per million population, but Santa Cruz County was allocated 40 projects (158 projects per million).("2009 California State Science Fair Projects by Fair". 2009-05-25. http://www.usc.edu/CSSF/Current/ProjectsByFair.ssi. Retrieved 2009-05-25.)