Ahhh, you're doing a Science Fair project eh? Well, this isn't quite the site for you. We're fun-only, you see, and that means we don't have deadlines or musts. Still, let's see if we can't offer some tips anyway.
Let's get the one you already know out of the way right now: don't wait too late to begin. Now let's move on to tips which have some potential to actually be helpful.
Choosing a Science Fair project
1. Make it something you find interesting. At the very least a little. SFPs take a long time, and it will feel much longer if you already dislike it now. Trust me--it will be easier overall to pick something slightly harder that you find compelling, than something easy you think is boring.
1. Make it something you find interesting. At the very least a little. SFPs take a long time, and it will feel much longer if you already dislike it now. Trust me--it will be easier overall to pick something slightly harder that you find compelling, than something easy you think is boring.
2. Choose something where your results will be in actual numbers--in other words, quantifiable. Don't choose something that, for example, involves your cat and various situations with and without catnip. Unless you're prepared to go at it with a lot of trials, a lot of cats, and a stopwatch, you're not going to get results you can put in a graph and analyze. You want graphs. They look snazzy and professional, and they make you look like you know what you're doing. I recommend choosing a project from a high school science fair projects book even if you're in junior high--you can alter it to make it easier, but it'll be more likely to have quantifiable results.
Reports, Posters and Boards
1. Avoid glitter and freehand writing or drawing (unless you're a very talented artist, and perhaps not even then) on any poster/display board. It usually doesn't give a professional appearance.
1. Avoid glitter and freehand writing or drawing (unless you're a very talented artist, and perhaps not even then) on any poster/display board. It usually doesn't give a professional appearance.
2. Your poster/display board is going to take way, way longer than you think. Even once you have everything written out. Even if you have everything laid out. Take the time you think it will take: now multiply that by three, and add enough time to run to the store for more ink, tear out a part when you notice you've misspelled something, and for one natural disaster (for example a power outage, orange juice spill, or surprise Siberian tiger attack), and this is how much time it will actually take. But seriously, it does take forever so don't leave 'just cutting out and gluing things' until the last night because you will be up at 2 am.
3. If you have directions on organizing your report, follow those. If not, follow the scientific method. Have these sections with headings (even if it flows better without them):
- Introduction, in which you give an overview of the scientific principles or background used in your project, and explain the motivation of your project (it's good to use a possible real-world application here).
- Hypothesis, which may only need to be one sentence saying what results you expect from your project. It can be up to a paragraph and it's usually okay to use bullet points, although check with your teacher. If you want to be really fancy, have a general hypothesis and then two or three bullets called specific aims, which are more precise.
- Methods, in which you explain step-by-step what you did and how you did it. Real scientific papers even give brand names of equipment used, again if you're feelin' fancy.
- Results. Report your measurements and put any graphs or tables here. This section may be mostly figures and not a lot of actual writing, because you just report the results here, you don't explain what they mean here.
- Discussion, or Analysis, is where you explain what your results mean. To what extent do they agree with your hypothesis? Explain why any deviations from your hypothesis might have occurred. (It's good for your results not to match your hypothesis exactly, or you won't have much to explain. In experiments it's not 'getting it right' that matters; it's explaining what happened, including what went wrong.) Form a new hypothesis based on your results, and suggest future experiments to test that hypothesis. Do your results have any implications for the real world? The Discussion is the most important part of your report, and will probably be the longest (the Introduction may be longer).
- Works Cited, or Bibliography. You should cite any source you use directly within the text at the end of the sentence or sentences in which you use it. You can do this with a number corresponding to a list in this section, or with (Author Last Name, year published). For example, (Wong, 1988). Google and use MLA format if your teacher doesn't give you more specific instructions.
For an example project on solar energy:
- Introduction: Explaining what a solar panel is, what it's made of and how it works. Discussing how alternative enegy is becoming more and more important as fossil fuels become scarcer and more expensive, and as environmental concerns mount.
- Hypothesis: Perhaps she expects to have the highest output of energy from her panels at noon.
- Methods: Exactly how she set up and carried out her experiments.
- Results: A graph of the different energy output for different times of day (energy y axis, time x axis) with different graphs comparing different days.
- Discussion: Perhaps the results show that peak energy is around 10am, not noon as she expected. She might speculate that the panel overheats by noon, or that its angle on the roof actually gives more sunlight at 10am. She suggests future experiments using a coolant, different angles, or a system for a tilting panel that follows the sun like a flower (this doesn't have to be stuff she intends to do or knows how to do). She might extrapolate her results (i.e., extend the results to relate to more than just her experiment with her panels) to say that with the energy output from her panels, 30% of her state's energy could be solar if everyone in her city used panels too (she'd have to look up how much energy her state uses, and the population of her city).
- Works Cited: List of citations in MLA format. Includes books, not just web pages. Does not include Wikipedia, which is not a scientifically reliable source.
4. These headings are also excellent for your board. On your board, use as little text and as many pictures or figures as you can to make your points.
A last note on prizes
Finally, I have some advice on prizes. It is generally a bad idea to have a goal of a specific prize. This is because Science Fairs are not always perfect and not always fair. There are very often politics going into the judging, for example not wanting to overlook the superintendent's kid, or favoring a project that promotes certain religious or political beliefs. Oh yes, that really does happen, I have seen it happen very blatantly. The judges might try their best to be fair, but maybe there are five projects they think are equally good--then one simply has to get first prize and one nothing, even if they are exactly the same quality. I therefore recommend that instead, you focus on creating a project you can be proud of. Know that it's quality and you did a great job. Then if you do get a prize, it's just icing on top of the cake, and if you don't you still know you produced something you can really have pride in.
Just remember, parts of this really can be fun if you choose your project well. Good luck!
