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To make a background research plan — a roadmap of the research questions you need to answer — follow these steps: Identify the keywords in the question for your science fair project. Brainstorm additional keywords and concepts.
If your project is an experiment, it is important to understand responding (or dependent) versus controlled (or independent) variables. Responding or dependent variables are the things that change (they depend on the conditions at which you run the experiment).
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- Experiment or Investigation. This is the most common type of science project, where you use the scientific method to propose and test a hypothesis. After you accept or reject the hypothesis, you draw conclusions about what you observed.
- Demonstration. A demonstration usually involves re-testing an experiment that already has been done by someone else. You can get ideas for this type of project from books and on the internet.
- Research. In this science project, you collect information about a certain topic and present your findings. Example: A research project can be an excellent project if you use the data to answer a question.
- Model. This type of science project involves building a model to illustrate a concept or principle. Example: Yes, one example of a model is the vinegar & baking soda volcano, but you can have an incredible high school or college project by building a model of a new design or a prototype for an invention.
Getting Started – Why Do a Science Fair Project. Besides walking through some reasons to do a project, we also share links to examples of national science fair competitions, what’s involved and examples of winning science fair experiments .
- Decide On an Area of Interest. An advanced science project isn't something you can do in a weekend, or even in a month! It takes many hours of thought and work, so the topic needs to be something in which you're interested and it needs to be fairly specific.
- Seek Out a Mentor. This step may be reversed with Step 1, depending on your personal circumstances. If you already have a mentor from a previous experience (either from another science fair, a summer internship, or some other interaction), then that mentor would be a great resource as you decide on an area of interest.
- Narrow Your Idea Down to a Testable Question and Hypothesis. Once you have selected your general area of interest and you have your mentor lined up, it's time to narrow your topic down to a testable question and to formulate your hypothesis.
- Write a Project Outline. After you've settled on the question to research, it is time to write a project outline. The project outline is a way to focus your ideas, questions, experimental priorities, and "to-do list" all in one place so that you can evaluate and improve it.
Learn to write the abstract for a science fair project. Includes a list of key elements for the abstract and examples, as well as things to avoid.
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The Scientific Method is a process used to design and perform experiments. It's important to minimize experimental errors and bias, and increase confidence in the accuracy of your results. In the previous sections, we talked about how to pick a good topic and specific question to investigate.
