UPA 2nd Science Fair

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UPA 2nd Science Fair

• Thursday, May 27, 2008
• 530 pm 900 pm

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Science Fair Schedule
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Purpose

• The purpose of a science fair is to develop
  and/or reinforce the student's interest in
  science. The student's effort while working on
  the project, meetings with teachers, and the
  discussions with other students doing projects
  and with the judges, all of these reinforce the
  student's interest and are valuable learning
  experiences.
• The primary purpose of the science fair project
  is to teach the scientific method of
  investigation. This systematic way to approach
  technical problems or problems arising from
  student curiosity about a scientific topic, can
  help students in approaching any number of
  problems in their futures. Systematic thinking
  and planning are key to success in tomorrow's
  workplace. This effort affords students the
  opportunity to experience formal investigation in
  a competitive environment while enabling them to
  learn from their peers.

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Who Participates

• All students at UPA must participate for extra
  academic credit.
• There will be some class time emphasis to prepare
  students for the science fair. However, most of
  the work will take place out of the class rooms.
• If assistance and/or guidance is needed, students
  are expected to work with their Science teacher
  to set the time needed.

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Repetition of Previous Years Work

• Repetition of Previous Year's Work A project
  exhibited in the previous Science Fair may not be
  done without Science teachers approval. It will
  required substantial expansion and development.

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Judging

• UPA successfully utilizes medical doctors and
  scientists employed by local industries, teachers
  from neighboring schools, or any adults with
  science background or interest.
• UPA does not have the student's parents or
  teachers doing the judging, as this places both
  in an uncomfortable position when the winners are
  announced. Obviously, teachers, advisors and
  parents can be involved in other ways in the fair.

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Science Fair Prizes

• Students will be eligible to win first, second or
  third places in one of the scientific categories.
  
• First place winners in any of the categories will
  normally be eligible to participate in County
  Science Fair, however the deadline for the County
  Fair has pass this school year.

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Planning a Science Fair Project

• The time necessary to develop a good project
  varies from project to project and from one grade
  level to the next. At the junior high and high
  school levels, a time period of two or three
  months is usually adequate, although some
  students may work on their projects longer.
• UPA is allowing students 3 months, however there
  are projects that may complete an excellent
  investigation in a shorter period of time.

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Planning a Science Fair Project

• This is information to help you with your science
  fair project. Through a science fair project you
  can learn what it is like to think like a
  scientist, to investigate and experiment in an
  area of your interest, and to share your results.
  
• A science fair project must use the "scientific
  method" and not be just a demonstration or
  comparison. We hope this presentation, will
  provide you with information to prepare you for
  planning a good project using the "scientific
  method".
• All student projects will need PRIOR approval
  from their Science teacher before any
  experimenting can be done.

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Criteria for Success

• Students are to answer a scientific question by
  doing an experiment and analyzing the results.
  The successful student will be one who thinks of
  a clear question, develops an hypothesis
  (educated guess) regarding the results of the
  experiment to answer the question, documents
  clear measurements and observations, and draws
  sensible conclusions which refer back to the
  original hypothesis.
• The hypothesis will preferably contain a cause
  (what change did the experimenter make) and an
  effect (what happened as a result of the change).
  
• Example If I reduce the amount of light
  (cause), a plant will grow slower (effect).
• Judges will carefully look at how the student
  controlled the conditions of the experiment to
  assure that the results came from the changes
  that were made and that control experiments are
  done to provide some way to measure the results
  against.

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Doing a First Class Project
A first class science fair project has four major
features. All four features are equally
important. The following will help you plan and
do your project.

• It contains an original, high quality experiment.
• The results of your experiment are clearly and
  neatly displayed.
• The display grabs the attention of the judges
• The project includes a scientific paper that
  tells you everything about your project. It also
  includes a notebook, journal or log book. It
  should be kept by the student and displayed at
  their table on fair day.

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Making a Timetable

• Get out or make a calendar you can mark important
  information on.
• Mark the date of the science fair.
• Cross off days planned for family, club
  activities and trips.
• Got your topic picked yet? Now work backwards
  from the day your project is due.
• Leave at least two weeks to write the final draft
  of your paper and to put together your display.
• Mark off a week for your first draft and a few
  days for your teacher to review it.
• Now you need a large block of time to collect
  your data. Plants and seeds need weeks to sprout
  and to grow.
• Are you planning to chart some kind of activity
  for a month or more? Then you will know when you
  need to start your experiment.

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Presenting Your Project
All of your hard work and your well done
experiment will not be noticed if your project
does not grab the attention of the judges and the
public. Your project will be examined your
efforts appreciated and may be rewarded if your
project is

• Organized
• The Title Is the Beginning
• Eye Catching and Attention Holding
• Correctly Presented, Well Constructed

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Organized

• Arrange the presentation of your project so that
  the judges can easily examine and understand your
  experiment and your results. With one quick
  glance, a viewer should be able to easily find
  the four necessary parts of your display
• The title, how you did your experiment, your
  data, and your conclusions.
• Remember, even though you are familiar with your
  topic and your work, when the judges see it, they
  will have no idea what your project is about.

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The Title Is the Beginning

• Your title is what the judges might see first.
  But it should be so much more than just a
  beginning. A good title grabs the attention of
  the casual observer. It is short, yet it
  correctly and completely describes your entire
  project.
• A good title begs the people looking at your
  project to dig deeper. Do not disappoint them.
• Make sure that your title tells us what your
  project is about.

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Eye Catching and Attention Holding

• Home built equipment, neat and colorful headings,
  graphs and tables all draw attention to your
  project. The careful use of contrasting colors
  will help.
• For filling in charts and bar graphs,
  construction paper cut-outs look much better than
  coloring white paper. For line graphs, use
  different colored marker pens instead of pencils.
  
• One area often needing extra attention is the
  labeling of graphs, charts, diagrams and tables.
  Each item must have its own very descriptive
  title. All columns, axes and data must be clearly
  labeled and identified. A person should be able
  to understand each graph without having to read
  your paper.
• Bar graphs, line graphs and pie charts all have
  different purposes. Check with your math teacher
  to make sure you have the right graph to display
  your type of data.

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Correctly Presented, Well Constructed

• When your display is constructed, observe the
  size limitations (48), safety considerations and
  other rules for presentation of your project.
• Build a sturdy display that will not fall apart
  before you even have it placed up. You will not
  want to construct your display using only poster
  board and tape. It will not stand up straight
  more than a few hours.
• It is okay for adults to help you construct your
  display. There are also display boards that can
  be purchased at a reasonable cost.

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Not Allowed at Project

• Living organisms (i.e., plants, animals, microbes
• Taxidermy specimens or parts
• Preserved vertebrate or invertebrate animals
• Human or animal food
• Human/animal parts or body fluids (for example,
  blood, urine) Exceptions teeth, hair, nails,
  dried animal bones, histological dry mount
  sections, and completely sealed wet mount tissue
  slides.
• Plant materials (living, dead or preserved) which
  are in their raw, unprocessed or non-manufactured
  state Exception manufactured construction
  materials used in building the project or display.

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Not Allowed at Project

• All chemicals including water Exceptions water
  integral to an enclosed apparatus or water
  supplied by the Display and Safety Committee.
• All hazardous substances or devices for example,
  poisons, drugs, firearms, weapons, ammunition,
  reloading devices, and lasers (as indicated in
  item 5 in the section of these rules entitled
  "Allowed at Project or Booth BUT with the
  Restrictions Indicated)
• Dry ice or other sublimating solids
• Sharp items (for example, syringes, needles,
  pipettes, knives
• Flames or highly flammable materials

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Not Allowed at Project

• Batteries with open-top cells
• Awards, medals, business cards, flags,
  endorsements and/or acknowledgements (graphic or
  written) unless the item(s) are an integral part
  of the project
• Photographs or other visual presentations
  depicting vertebrate animals in surgical
  techniques, dissections, necropsies, or other lab
  procedures
• Active Internet or e-mail connections as part of
  displaying or operating the project at the Intel
  ISEF

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Not Allowed at Project

• Prior years' written material or visual
  depictions on the vertical display board.
  Exception the project title displayed in the
  Finalist's booth may mention years or which year
  the project is (for example, "Year Two of an
  Ongoing Study"). Continuation project must have
  the Continuation Project Form (7) vertically
  displayed.
• Glass or glass objects unless deemed by the
  Display and Safety Committee to be an integral
  and necessary part of the project (Exception
  glass that is an integral part of a commercial
  product such as a computer screen)
• Any apparatus deemed unsafe by the Scientific
  Review Committee, the Display and Safety
  Committee, or Science Service (for example, large
  vacuum tubes or dangerous ray-generating devices,
  empty tanks that previously contained combustible
  liquids or gases, pressurized tanks, etc.)

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Benefits of Participating
The Competition and Educational Experience

• The science fair project is the culmination of
  hard work and persistent investigation. It
  affords a young scientist the opportunity to
  share their interests with parents, relatives,
  neighbors, and teachers as well as the chance to
  be interviewed by the judges who are scientists,
  engineers, doctors, and others with scientific
  interests.
• The opportunity significantly contributes to the
  education of students in the thinking process of
  formulating the project and actually doing the
  experiments. It may mean the beginning of a
  life-long fascination with science.

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Benefits of Participating
Why Do a Science Fair Project?

• Doing a science project provides an opportunity
  for students to
• Learn and practice critical thinking, inquiry and
  investigative skills
• Learn research methods and encourage the
  development of research techniques - obtain data,
  keep a research log or notebook, learn graphing
  and develop conclusions
• Foster imagination and creative thought
• Develop organizational skills
• Work independently as well as in a group
• Enhance communications skills

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Benefits of Participating
Why Do a Science Fair Project?

• Meet others interested in science study
• Earn recognition for academic excellence
• Win awards and special awards or earn an expense
  paid trip

The future, it is said, lies in science,
mathematics, and technology. For those with the
interest, talent, and ability, there are
opportunities and exciting careers. It is a
future that seeks to improve lives of people, to
increase their productivity, to expand their
minds, and to extend their potentials.
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The Scientific Method Cause and Effect

• Scientists observe everything in the world from
  the viewpoint of cause and effect. THERE IS NO
  MAGIC!
• Scientists believe that all events are the result
  of a collection of other earlier events.
• Take a split second. Watch something happen, like
  fireworks exploding, an alarm clock starts
  ringing, or a leaf twisting once in the breeze.
  The events that happened before the split second
  that you watched are the "causes". The single
  event you saw during that split second is called
  the "effect".
• With the help of your family or classmates, pick
  a single, split second event. Try to name twenty
  or so other events that helped cause it.

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The Scientific Method Cause and Effect

• Scientific Method Each collection of causes will
  produce a predictable event.
• Gaining knowledge about our world is simply
  understanding how and why the causes create a
  particular event.
• Over the years, scientists have developed a
  step-by-step method to investigate an event. It
  is called a "scientific method". The carefully
  studied event is called an "experiment".
• If care and honesty are used, the scientific
  method will help you study your experiment.
• You should be able to discover the correct cause
  and effect relationships.

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Steps Through the Scientific Method

• Pick a Topic Before an event can be studied you
  must have some idea of what it is that you want
  to observe. Your topic might be "acid rain.
• Limit Your Topic You have very little time and
  resources. You will only be able to study an
  extremely small collection of events. You must,
  therefore, limit your experiment to one or two
  specific events. "I will study the effect of
  nitrate bearing acid rain on a brick."

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Steps Through the Scientific Method

• Study, Observe and Gather Read about your
  limited topic. Observe related events. Gather
  existing information concerning your limited
  topic. Look for unexplained or unexpected events
  or results. Also, you might need to learn
  something about the field of mathematics known
  and statistics.
• Generalize Organize what you know about your
  topic. Make lists of known causes for specific
  events. Describe what generally happens when you
  observe related events.

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Steps Through the Scientific Method

• Theorize, Form a Question and Predict Write a
  sentence that predicts what will happen if you do
  your experiment. This statement is called a
  "theory". Your theory must agree with
  observations already studied. From your theory
  put together the exact question that you want to
  answer with your experiment. State what you think
  would happen if some of the causes of your event
  were changed. Causes that can change are called
  "variables". Some variables are turned on or off
  like a light switch, others change in size like
  the temperature setting of an oven.

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Steps Through the Scientific Method

• Experiment Design, and do, a series of
  experiments. You must design each experiment so
  you can observe the results if one and only one
  variable is changed. By changing just one
  variable, you can determine that variable's
  effect on your chosen event. To see the real
  effect, you may need to change the size of a
  single variable several times. Be sure to include
  one or more experiments when none of the
  variables are changed on purpose. This is called
  the "control experiment". The control is very
  important. It shows the normal results from your
  experiment if you don't try to change anything.
  Be careful, you may be able to keep many
  variables from changing, but some you usually
  can't do anything about. Some variables you have
  control over are room temperature, time of day,
  how far you stretch a spring, relative humidity
  and how hungry your human or animal subject is.
  Some variables that you can't do anything about
  are atmospheric pressure, how bright the sunshine
  is, the mood skill, reflexes or previous dietary
  habits of yourself and/or subjects

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Steps Through the Scientific Method

• Examine Your Result Did your experiments give
  you the expected results? Why or why not? Be very
  honest! Reexamine your experiments. Was more than
  one variable changed at one time? Was your
  experiment done with the exact same steps each
  time? Are there other causes that you had not
  considered or observed? Were there errors in your
  observations? How large were the errors? If your
  physical skills were involved, how much better
  did you get at doing your job with each repeat?
  Remember that understanding errors and reporting
  that a suspected variable did not change the
  results can be valuable information.

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Steps Through the Scientific Method

• Draw Conclusions What variables are important?
  Was your theory correct? Did you collect the
  proper data? Did you collect enough data? Does
  more work need to be done or is your experiment
  finished?

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The Research Paper

• A research paper consists of (A) the written
  presentation of your investigation and
  experimentationInvestigative Research, or (B) a
  Library Research. The Library Research should not
  be "A Book Report", but should be an
  investigation and comparison of divergent
  theories collected.
• Separate judging criteria are established for
  both categories of papers.
• Scientific thought and procedures will receive
  major credit in the judging. Judging criteria for
  library research papers will heavily stress the
  analysis and application of the research data and
  the depth of the research effort (quality and
  quantity of the references).

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The Research Paper Requirements
Length of paper The body of the paper
(introduction, materials, methods and procedures,
results and discussion and conclusions) is
limited to eight (8) pages, double spaced, in
type no smaller than 10 characters per inch
(elite type). These 8 pages exclude the abstract,
bibliography, graphs, and appendices.

• Binding
• Cover Page
• Abstract
• Judging

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The Research Paper Requirements

• Binding The Research Paper must be stapled with
  no other binding no plastic cover, folder or
  three ring binders allowed.
• Cover Page The cover page states the student's
  name, school name and address, title of the
  research, grade in school, name of the advisor
  and category of the research. Make your title
  concise but also descriptive. Your title should
  indicate the nature of your research, not the
  entire content. The best titles are usually ten
  (10) words or less.
• Abstract An abstract of no more than 250 words
  must be included before the title page.
• Judging Papers will be judged solely on this
  year's work. Be sure that it is clear to the
  judges what this year's work is.

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Category Descriptions

• ANIMAL SCIENCES Study of animals - animal
  genetics, ornithology, ichthyology, herpetology,
  entomology, animal ecology, animal anatomy and
  physiology, circadian rhythms, animal husbandry,
  histology, animal physiology, invertebrate
  physiology, studies of invertebrates, animal
  development, animal pathology, population
  genetics, systematics, etc.
• BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Human behavior,
  social and community relationshipspsychology,
  sociology, anthropology, archaeology, ethology,
  ethnology, linguistics, learning, perception,
  urban problems, reading problems, public opinion
  surveys, educational testing, clinical and
  developmental psychology, etc.

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Category Descriptions

• BIOCHEMISTRY Chemistry of life processes -
  general biochemistry, metabolism, structural
  biochemistry, protein chemistry, food chemistry,
  hormones, etc.
• CELLULAR AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Cellular
  biology, cellular physiology, cellular and
  molecular genetics, immunology, molecular
  biology, etc.
• CHEMISTRY Study of nature and composition of
  matter and laws governing it - general chemistry,
  organic chemistry (other than biochemistry),
  inorganic chemistry, materials, plastics,
  pesticides, metallurgy, soil chemistry, physical
  chemistry, etc.

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Category Descriptions

• COMPUTER SCIENCE Study and development of
  computer hardware, software engineering, Internet
  networking and communications, databases,
  graphics (including human interface), simulations
  / virtual reality or computational science,
  artificial intelligence, networking, operating
  systems, etc.
• EARTH AND PLANETARY SCIENCE Geology,
  mineralogy, physiography, geochemistry,
  oceanography, meteorology, climatology, weather,
  speleology, seismology, geography, geophysics,
  planetary science, tectonics, etc.
• ENGINEERING Electrical and Mechanical
  Technology projects that directly apply
  principles to practical uses - electrical,
  computer engineering, controls, mechanical,
  thermodynamics, solar, robotics, etc.

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Category Descriptions

• ENGINEERING Materials and Bioengineering
  Technology projects that directly apply
  scientific principles to manufacturing and
  practical uses - civil, construction, mechanical,
  industrial, chemical, processing, material
  science, etc.
• ENERGY TRANSPORTATION Aerospace and
  aeronautical engineering, aerodynamics,
  alternative fuels, fossil fuel energy, vehicle
  development, renewable energies, etc.
• ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT Bioremediation,
  ecosystems management, environmental engineering,
  land resource management, forestry, recycling,
  waste management, etc.

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Category Descriptions

• ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES Study of air pollution
  and air quality, soil contamination and soil
  quality, water pollution and water quality, etc.
• MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES Development of formal
  logical systems or various numerical and
  algebraic computations, and the application of
  these principles - calculus, geometry, abstract
  algebra, number theory, statistics, complex
  analysis and probability, etc.
• MEDICINE HEALTH SCIENCES Disease diagnosis
  and treatment, edipemiology, dentistry,
  pharmacology, pathology, ophthalmology,
  nutrition, sanitation, dermatology, allergies,
  speech and hearing, genetics, molecular biology
  of diseases, etc.

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Category Descriptions

• MICROBIOLOGY Biology of microorganisms -
  bacteriology, virology, protozoology, fungi,
  bacterial genetics, yeast, antibiotics,
  antimicrobials, etc.
• PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY Theories, principles, and
  laws governing energy and the effect of energy on
  matter - solid state, optics, acoustics,
  particle, nuclear, atomic, molecules, solids,
  plasma, superconductivity, fluid and gas
  dynamics, thermodynamics, semiconductors,
  magnetics, quantum mechanics, biophysics,
  electromagnetics, optics, lasers, masers,
  theoretical physics, basic astronomy, theoretical
  astronomy, computational astronomy, etc.
• PLANT SCIENCES Study of plant life -
  agriculture, agronomy, horticulture, forestry,
  plant physiology, plant pathology, plant
  genetics, hydroponics, plant ecology,
  photosynthesis, plant systematics, evolution, etc.

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Project Display Board
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Resource websites
http//school.discoveryeducation.com/sciencefairce
ntral/ http//www.all-science-fair-projects.com/
http//scienceclub.org/scifair.html (On this
site, you can e-mail other students
with your questions.) http//www.usc.e
du/CSSF/ http//www.societyforscience.org/isef/
http//www.stemnet.nf.ca/sciencefairs/ http//www
.scifair.org/ http//sciencefairproject.virtualav
e.net/ http//www.californiasciencecenter.org/ h
ttp//www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects
/teacher_resources.shtml http//www.sciencebuddie
s.org/science-fair-projects/project_guide_index.sh
tml