Science Fair Projects

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Science Fair Projects
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Choose a Topic

• Pick a topic that
• Will be interesting.
• You will be able to complete in the required
  time.
• ( See handout for timeline.)

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Title

• Choose a title that reflects your topic and is in
  the form a question
• Example How does caffeine affect the growth of a
  plant?

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Purpose

• Write 1 to 3 sentences describing what you want
  to find out in this project.
• Example The purpose of this project is to find
  out if a pea plant will grow taller when given
  caffeine rather than water.

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Research

• Research should be designed to get background
  information about your topic, before you begin
  your experiment.

• Develop 3 questions that you want to answer about
  your topic.
• Try to use various sources for your research.
• Suggested sources
• Books
• Magazines
• Newspapers
• Internet

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Hypothesis

• Make your guess
• Use your research to make an educated guess about
  how you think your experiment will turn out.
• Use the If I __________ then I think
  _____format
• Example If I pour 100ml of coffee on four pea
  plants and pour 100ml of water in another four
  pea plants, then I think the plants with coffee
  will grow taller because caffeine will stimulate
  the plants.

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Procedure

• Design your experiment
• Design your experiment so that they only test for
  one thing.
• Make sure that you do the same things to all
  groups of objects being tested.
• Example If you are testing plants
• Use the same seeds.
• Plant all of them with the same soil.
• Put them all in the same amount of light for the
  same amount of time.
• The only thing that should be different about the
  plants is that one received coffee and the other
  water.

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Procedure

• To increase the validity of your experiment
• Make sure to keep a control group.
• Keep in mind sample size.
• The more objects in your sample the more valid
  your experiment.
• Use multiple trials. (At least three.)

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Procedure

• Write down step-by-step directions on how to do
  your experiment.
• Do not leave anything out!
• Example

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Procedure

• Get 8 pea plants ( 100 cm tall).
• Place 4 pea plants on each tray.
• Label one set of plants Caffeine.
• Label the second set Water.
• Pour 100ml of coffee( with caffeine ) onto the
  soil of each plant twice a week.
• Pour 100ml of water onto the soil of each plant
  twice a week.
• Measure each plant with a metric ruler
• Record data in record book.

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Materials

• Make a complete list of everything you will use
  in your experiment.
• Tell how many and how much of each object used.
• Use metric measures only.

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Do your experiment.
Have fun !
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Make Charts and Graphs

• Display data using charts, tables, and graphs.
• Use the Graph Club or Inspiration program.
• Choose the correct graphs for your data.
• Bar-comparison
• Pie-percentage
• Line-change/time

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Results

• Using your data write a few sentences how your
  experiment turned out.
• Example
• From reading my charts and graphs, I know that
  Plant Group 1 grew an average of 40cm with 100ml
  of coffee. Plant Group 2 grew and average of
  20cm with 100ml of water. The Plant Group that
  was given coffee grew 20cm more on the average
  than the Plant Group that was given water.

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Conclusion

• Write down why you think your experiment turned
  out the way it did, include if your hypothesis
  was supported or not.
• Be sure to use the term My hypothesis was/was
  not supported.
• Do not say I was right/wrong.
• Even when your hypothesis was not supported you
  gain information about your topic.
• Use scientific reasoning for conclusion.

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Conclusion

• Example
• My hypothesis was supported. The plants that
  were watered with coffee ( caffeine ) grew taller
  than those that were given water. Therefore,
  caffeine has a positive effect on the growth of
  pea plants. This may be due the fact that
  caffeine is a stimulant. The caffeine could have
  stimulated the plant to grow.

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Future Considerations

• Tell what variable you would change if you could
  do the experiment again.
• Tell how you might take your experiment to the
  next step.

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Future Considerations

• Example
• If I could do this experiment again , the
  variable I would change would be the amount of
  caffeine I would place in each plant group. I
  would use 50ml for plant group 1, 100ml for
  plant group 2, and 150ml for plant group 3. I
  would also have three control groups of plants.
  One would get 50ml of water. One would get
  100ml of water. And one would get 150ml of
  water. I want to see which amount of caffeine
  helps plants grow the tallest.

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Make Your Board

• Start your information on the top left panel of
  the board, move down the left panel, across the
  middle panel, and from the top down on the right
  panel.
• Place pictures of your experiment on your board.

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Make your Board
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Helpful Resources

• Science Fair Web Pages
• http//www.sciencebuddies.org/index_A.htm
• Best site for help through out project!
• http//faculty.washington.edu/chudler/fair.html
• This is a good site explaining the parts of a
  science fair project.
• http//edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/jtindell/
• A web site for children to use in setting up
  their science fair project
• http//school.discovery.com/sciencefaircentral
• A great site! It has info for parents, teachers,
  and students. It has project ideas, research
  tools, and tip sheets for all kinds of projects.

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Bringing It Together

• Keys for success
• Make a time-line and stick to it.
• Parental support
• Organization