Science Fair Project Made Easy - Flagstaff Unified School ...



Science Fair Project Made Easy: Formal Experiments

STEP 1- Problem

What do you want to figure out?

Hmmmm…… what is interesting to you? Your investigation should be

something simple and that you are really interested in. Have some fun, come

up with a list of neat ideas. For example, let’s say you like to skate board.

Skateboards could be your topic, but you need to narrow your investigation

down to a specific problem (a specific question about skateboards).

You could build a ramp and test out if changing the height of the ramp will

help you skate down faster. There are many other things you could try out.

Do you think adding weight to the skateboard and rolling it down a ramp

will make it go faster? What about the types of wheels? What if you change

the length of the board?

Write down what you want to investigate, and why it would be interesting or

important to know about it.

Experiment Title (Something creative AND informational) _______________________________________________

Scientist ______________________________A.K.A._______________________________

PROBLEM

What do you want to find out? _________________________________________________________________________________

Why is this an interesting thing to explore?____________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

STEP 2- Research

What do other people know about it?

Wow, there is a lot of information about pretty much everything out there in books, encyclopedias, and the internet! Your next step is to find out what other people know about your topic. Try to use more than one source of information. Once you learn more about what you are interested in, write what you found out in a summary using your own words. You could start off like this- “Through my research, I discovered that…”

Once you write your summary, you need to give credit to the authors that helped you learn more. This is called a works cited or bibliography. It looks like this:

Helleson, J. Skateboards-How To Go Faster. New York: Barnes, 2009

You can find examples of how to make a citation from:



Write your works cited information under your summary

RESEARCH

What do you already know about it? ________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

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On a separate piece of paper start by listing the facts that you learn from each source that you read. Then, put you facts and ideas in a logical order to create a research section that has at least 3 strong paragraphs of information (general introduction, specific details, and facts that support your idea for an experiment).

Works Cited (at least 3 different sources including at least 1 book):

STEP 3- Hypothesis

What do you think is happening/ will happen?

So, now you know a little about your topic, it’s time to make an educated

guess about what will happen when you do your experiment. Make your guess

a statement as if it is a fact (don’t write- “ I think that….”) For example, let’s say

you wanted to test out the width of skateboard wheels. Through your research,

you found out that friction slows things down. The more wheel parts on the ramp,

the slower it should go. So, in your hypothesis, you would write something like this:

“The skateboard with the narrowest wheels will travel the fastest down the ramp

because it will have less friction, so it won’t slow down as much as the wider wheels.”

HYPOTHESIS (what do you think is going to happen or is happening? State it as a fact.)

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

If you are having a hard time thinking of how to write your hypothesis as a fact, then try this: Another way to write a hypothesis is to use an “If, then, because” outline. We can use the same hypothesis as above, but rewrite it as “If a skateboard has narrow wheels, then it will travel fastest down a ramp, because it will have less friction, so it won’t slow down as much as one with wider wheels.”

If________________________________________________________________________,

then________________________________________________________________________,

because______________________________________________________________________.

STEP 4- Experiment

Test it out!

Whoa now! Before you just run off and do your experiment, you need to think

about what you’re doing. Think of an experiment like a recipe. If everyone made

chocolate chip cookies by just throwing in whatever they wanted, we would all

come up with different results! You need to record what you are doing so that

someone else could take the same items, and do your exact same experiment. It is

also important in science to measure something in your experiment. Your c cookies will be best if you use just the right amount of ingredients. Think

about what you are going to measure in your investigation.

In your experiment section of the board, you will need to list out these things:

Control- How will you know that what you are doing with your variable is different? ( this item/ part of the experiment will not be tested, but left alone for comparison) For example: The skateboard should be the same kind and size for all experiment in the wheels test.

Variable- What will you be changing or testing in your experiment? For example: The width of the wheels is what changes in the skateboard experiment.

Materials- It’s like a shopping list. Basically, what would someone need to do your experiment.

Procedure- Step-by-step instructions on what you did, so that if we followed them exactly, it

would be detailed enough that we would come up with the same, or similar results.

EXPERIMENT:

Materials (shopping list-what will you need to do this experiment?)

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

Control (what will stay the same?) ____________________________________________

Variable (what are you testing?) _____________________________________________

Procedures (This is like a recipe. Tell us step by step how you will conduct your experiment.)

Step 1. _________________________________________________________________

Step 2. _________________________________________________________________

Step 3. _________________________________________________________________

Step 4. _________________________________________________________________

Step 5. _________________________________________________________________

Step 6. _________________________________________________________________

STEP 5- Results

What happened?

Now all you have to do is figure out the best way to make a

visual reference to your numbers. There are pie graphs, line

graphs, bar graphs, and tables. Choose the right graph for

the data you have and add it to your science fair board in

this section. Then include any photographs that go along

with your experiment.

RESULTS: Table of Data – Put the numbers that you measure here

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Graph it! Use this space to make a rough draft of the graph for your data. Once you are happy with the type of graph that you have picked you could either make a very nice drawing of a final draft graph to go on your presentation board, or you could use a computer program to make a graph. A great website for learning how to make and print graphs is: Create A Graph at

Type of graph:______________________

Why is this the best graph for your data?___________________________________________________

STEP 6- Conclusion

What does all this mean?

Look at your chart and your results. What happened? Write down

what you learned from doing your experiment and add it to this section

of the science board.

CONCLUSION:

What happened? Using the numbers from your results tell us what you learned from your experiment. Be sure to tell us whether or not your hypothesis was to proven to be correct, incorrect, or unproven with this test. Use numbers and refer to your tables and graphs to support this statement. Then refer back to facts from your background research to help tell us why you think you got the results that you did. PLEASE USE COMPLETE SENTENCES AND DEEP THINKING!

_______________________________________________________________________________

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_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

This taught me that ______________________________________________________________

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STEP 7- Further Investigations

Anything else?

So, what do you think? Can you improve your experiment? What would you do differently next time? Or are there any other things you wondered about as you were conducting your investigation? What else could be tested or found out about what you did? Write your thoughts and attach it to this section of your board.

Through experiments, we discover new things and come up with new ideas. What would be another interesting thing you could explore about your topic?

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Let’s put it all together! This is what your board will look like:

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Congratulations! You are finished! Not only do you have a chance

to win a first place, but you have completed a real scientific

investigation using the Scientific Method!

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“Class, the science fair is coming soon, and all of you need to have a project due by….”

Science Fair! These two words spark fear in parents, and panic in students.

But why? If you really think about it, all you are doing is following a simple recipe- it’s called the scientific method. Here’s how it’s done…

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