It is increasingly recognized that research is most impactful when disseminated to broad audiences within and beyond the scientific community. For children and youth, opportunities to share independent research beyond family and science fair attendees are limited by a lack of appropriate dissemination platforms. This lack of opportunity creates the 'science fair dilemma', where the engagement of students with the scientific community is curtailed once science fairs wrap up. Here we discuss this missed opportunity to encourage engagement and skill development of young scientists, and provide a case study of a student centric science journal aimed to tackle these challenges.