Science research » Step 2

School Science Projects – What Teachers Really Want

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:31:58 +0000

Looking for a project that can get your teacher’s attention? You need not look any further! And yes, while you’re on the lookout for the best possible project, don’t forget to hop into our library for free guidelines on your projects.

How to Make Your Project Grab Your Teacher’s Attention? To get you started, here are some things that teachers are looking for in good Science projects.

STEP #1: Choose a topic that interests you. Teachers are looking out for science projects that are wholeheartedly done. They can tell a project done well and just for the sake of doing it. It is therefore important to choose a topic that you love.

Your ideas about the following things could turn into science projects:

1. Things That Amaze You: Ever wondered how a huge airplane manages to fly in thin air? Grab some books on that topic from your library, and do some research. There are many like you who are equally confused. Maybe you could look for books on gravity and aerodynamics.

2. Things That You Encounter Daily: Ever wondered how your camera works? Try constructing a pin-hole camera. Or how your car works? Experiment with various home-made models.

3. Things That Others Say: Find out why your parents tell you to exercise or eat your vegetables or go to bed early. Research and learn the positive benefits of these habits on your body. Why do people prefer a particular brand of toothpaste? Is there really a difference? This could give you a practical topic for your project.

If you’re looking for ideas, check out this guide to good Science projects.

STEP #2: Just Do It! Teachers try to determine how much personal effort a student puts in, in order to create the project. Here are a few steps that can enhance your efforts:

1. Collect Facts from Real Life: Look around your home, your neighborhood and the World Wide Web for facts and materials that support your project.
2. Collect Facts from Science: Use science to go about your project.

Ask yourself the following questions:

* Which scientific principle am I trying to demonstrate?
* If I change one parameter how will it affect another?
* If I do things differently how would it affect the result?

3. Collect Facts From Your Own Experiments: Perform a set of actions and write down the results. Let the results be available for your teachers to study.

STEP #3: Make It Presentable Well presented science projects make the first impression on teachers. Make your project simple and clear.

Here are a few ways to make your project presentable:

1. Present Information Clearly: Get rid of all ambiguity by presenting the facts and figures in a neat tabular and graphic form.

2. Present It Using Pictures: Since our minds understand pictures better, a picturesque presentation would make your project entertaining and knowledgeable.

3. Present an account of your experience: Write an account of how you went about creating your project, what hindrances you encountered and how you arrived at the final step.

And yes, there is one thing you could do to boost your confidence. A day before the science fair, run a mock presentation. Have someone ask you some questions and try to answer them. Imagine the judge and your teachers examining and appreciating your project. For more resources on picking a great topic and creating a great project with minimal stress, check out the links below.

Good luck!

By: Aurora Lipper

Science Fair Projects – Science Project Success Step 1 – The Scientific Method

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:02:30 +0000

A science fair project examines a scientific problem and finds a solution to it by using a scientific method. In this article, I will show you how to use the scientific method by using simple examples. Scientists use the scientific method as an “aid” to find solutions to scientific problems. It helps them to think of many workable solutions and test each solution to find out which one is the best.

Allow me now to take you through all the 5 steps one by one:

Step 1: Conducting Research Research for your science fair project involves gathering facts and figures from your personal observations, educative material and experiments. These facts and figures must be neatly organized. I would suggest that your research must have two parts:

Topic for Research: This step involves finding a topic of your research. For example, you may have noticed bread mold or fungi that grow on white bread and give rise to new offspring (reproduction). Bingo! Your topic is ready- ‘Reproduction of Fungi’.

Project for Research: This step involves knowing more about the topic, pinpointing a problem, asking “what if…” questions, proposing answers (hypothesis) and setting up experiments that will answer your “what if…” questions. An example of a project for research could be placing a white bread slice in a box for a few days and examining what happens.

Step 2: Identifying the Problem The question to be answered using scientific method is called the problem. Let me help you to form your questions:

The question must be open-ended and specific: Ask questions such as, “What effect does light have on bread mold reproduction?” This calls for extensive thought and research. This question is also specific: A specific factor- light, a specific life process- reproduction, a specific mold type- bread mold and a specific bread type- white bread. Such a question would rule out other molds.

The answer must require an experiment: For example, “What are bread molds?” is something that can be looked up in an encyclopedia. But, “How fast does bread mold reproduce at room temperature?” would prompt you to conduct an experiment.

Step 3: Forming a Hypothesis: A hypothesis is a claim made, an answer proposed or an assumption made in the form of a single statement. Your experimentation is carried out to test your hypothesis. Your hypothesis must not be based on your fancies, but on knowledge and a detailed study. You can form the hypothesis for your science fair project as follows: “I am of the opinion that light does not affect mold reproduction over white bread. My hypothesis is based on these facts:

Light is required for the survival of organisms that contain chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is not present in bread mold. In exploratory experiments conducted by me, mold was found to be growing on white bread placed in dark bread boxes.”

Your hypothesis should never be changed if it is not supported by your experimentation results.

Step 4: Conducting Relevant Experiments As mentioned earlier, this step will test the hypothesis of your science fair project. You may set up your experiment by placing slices of bread in a number of closed cardboard boxes. Along with these boxes you must also place the same number of open cardboard boxes that receive light, to show that light affects mold reproduction. This is called a control setup. You must have accurate ways to measure the results of your experiment.

Step 5: Arriving at a Conclusion In this step you must neatly summarize the results of your experimentation. You must state whether the results support the hypothesis or not. If not, give reasons for the same. In case your hypothesis is supported by your results, you can conclude in this way: “As my hypothesis mentions, I am of the opinion that light does not affect mold reproduction over white bread. The same has been supported by my experimentation results. Spores do germinate in the absence of light. After a week’s time, the spores continued to germinate and grow, in full light or without light. To rule out the possibility of light entering the boxes, light-proof boxes may be used in the future.”

I hope you liked my ideas. Now go on and create your own science projects using the scientific method.

By: Aurora Lipper

Science Fair Projects – Complete Guide to a Winning Science Project Step 2 – Topic Research

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:19:05 +0000

First, get yourself a spiral notebook to be used as your journal. All science fair projects need to have notes taken as you work though them. This notebook is where you will record your topic research and your project research. It should have your ideas as well as those you get from printed information or from other people. It will also need to include descriptions of your experiment along with diagrams, graphs and other recorded notes of your results.

You will want all information written in the journal to be as neat as possible and make sure to include the date. This will be your complete and accurate record of your project from beginning to end. The information in the journal will be used to write your written report. Your journal will be displayed with your completed project.

Selecting a Topic

You want to get the best grade possible on your project, win awards at the fair and learn anything new about science you can. Judges will evaluate the science fair projects on a number of criteria. You will be able to achieve some or all of these as long as you spend the time working on your project it needs, so you will want to choose a topic you are interested in. If you can, it is best to choose a topic and stick with it. Don’t bounce around from topic to topic.

Look at the World Around You

By using an exploring question you can turn things you see everyday into a science project. For an example, the grass in your neighbor’s yard is always greener than in your yard. Why is his grass greener than ours? You have a question about plants. Could you turn it into a project? If you keep thinking about it, you might start to realize there is some nutrient in his soil that is not in yours.

If you keep your eyes and ears open and you start asking more exploring questions, you will find numerous things that could be turned into a project. You may wonder about the difference in paints. There are many questions you may have, but you don’t always ask them.

Find a Topic in Science Magazines

If you find a topic in a science magazine, do not expect them to come with instructions on how to do the experiment. You will have to come up with that one on your own. Just look at facts that seeming interesting to you. If they lead you to ask and exploring question, you may have a project topic. You can even try looking into a science fair project book or Science Experiment Books.

Three Steps to a Topic

You have decided to enter a project into the science fair, but you really don’t know where to start. The first thing you have to do is come up with a project idea. Start with a topic that interests you will have fun and learn something while working on this project. Here are a few hints for coming up with a project idea.

Look at these ideas and find a topic that interests you.

People Animals Plants Rocks Space Weather Electricity

There are many projects you can come up with using any one of these topic ideas. Come up with a question you have about one of these topics. You can start off with a simple question and make it a better question. Such as, “Why does it rain?” You want to get more specific about your question. So then you expound on it to become “How much rain did California get last year compared to 5 years ago?” Good topics for science fair projects include anything that you can do an experiment on to see if it is true or false.

Categories of Topic Ideas
Check with your teacher, but usually every fair has a list of categories. You may need to ask the advice of your teacher to find the right category for your project. You must have your project entered into the right category to win. If your project happened to get entered into the wrong category, you can be penalized because the judges are required to judge a project based on its category. For a list of categories, check out the resources on the web site below:

By: Aurora Lipper