Science Fairs: Fun?

Articles in this Topic Discussions in this Topic

Dec 29, 1998

For a lot of you it's time to start thinking about your Science Fair Project. Science fairs and procrastination seem to go hand in hand. By the time many decide what they want to do or begin their projects they find they have run out of time. Don't wait to the last minute; start early. If you are on holiday vacation you can begin by choosing a topic and working out the details. This way you will have something to show your teacher when you return to school.

Spend time each day exploring the science sites I have listed to see what topics interest you. Check out the online science magazines for new ideas. Perhaps you are reading about the new research into plant communication. I wonder what effects you could find if you put a few plants together and one by itself in another room. Of course you will need to learn a bit about plants, lighting and food to make sure your plants are all grown or nurtured under the same optimal conditions. Background information is crucial to your experiment. Knowing in advance about your topic will help if anything goes wrong. You will gain a better understanding of why it may have happened.

Pick one variable or condition for your test. If you make it too complicated you may not know what caused what. Make sure you have a control group, one that is not exposed to the variable. You need something to compare to. Remember, getting the right answer to your question is not the goal. Don't be disappointed if your experiment doesn't work the way you intended. The goal is to discover if your hypothesis is true or not and to clearly explain what you did and what your results were.

So what if things do go wrong and your plants die? Then you need to know why. Did anything happen while they were growing? Can't remember? That is why a rule of thumb is to buy yourself a notebook to keep your data and notes in. The first thing you want to do is describe your experiment and what you will be doing and then list all of the materials and conditions that will be used during your experiment. Each day write down all of your observations. Is the soil drying out? Did the cat knock it down?

Keep track of every detail and make sure you don't change any conditions during the experiment. If anything does happen out of the ordinary then that is considered an extraneous variable. You will want to make sure you enter that into your observations. So if your cat knocks down one plant then you will want to add that to your report and data. If the plant dies then you may come to the conclusion that the shock of the fall caused that plants death not what nutrient you added. If all the plants died in the group then it may have been the variable. The important thing to remember is collect and record everything. What may not seem important at the time may be, when your experiment is finished.

Go To Page: 1 2 3

The copyright of the article Science Fairs: Fun? in Science for Kids is owned by Debbie St. Germain. Permission to republish Science Fairs: Fun? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.