Science Fair 2016-2017 KOFA

What is the Science Fair? The Science fair is an opportunity to safely explore something you have wondered while receiving structured support from a science teacher (me). The experiment should be something that interests you. If you can pick a topic, I can help you narrow your question and create an experiment

Basic Timeline (Science Fair Fridays) 09/30/16- Decide what will be the topic of the experiment 10/07/16- Create a research design and 4-6 research questions that will be researched 10/14/16- Research the questions, organize notes and create bibliography page 10/21/16-Create hypothesis 10/28/16-Submit proposal (List materials, and detailed procedures including possible safety precautions) 11/11/16-Carry out experiment 11/18/16-Research paper completed 11/16/16-Peer evaluations 11/23/16-Revise paper 11/30/16-Poster in ppt completed

What can I work on? The following categories are acceptable for research: Animal Sciences Behavioral Science Biochemistry Health Science Cellular and Molecular Biology Chemistry Computational Biology Earth and Environmental Science Embedded Systems Energy: Chemical Energy: Physical Engineering Mechanics Environmental Engineering Material Science Mathematics Microbiology Physics and Astronomy Plant Science Robotics and Intelligent Machines System Software

Things to avoid Any topic that requires dangerous, hard to find, expensive or illegal materials. Any topic that requires drugging, pain or injury to a live vertebrate animal. Any topic that creates unacceptable risk (physical or psychological) to a human subject. Any topic that involves collection of tissue samples from living humans or vertebrate animals. Effects of colored light on plants. Several people do this project at almost every science fair. You can be more creative! Effect of music or talking on plants. Difficult to measure, and has been done a million times already Effect of color on memory, emotion, mood, taste, strength, etc. Highly subjective and difficult to measure. Preference or taste comparisons, anything involving blood pressure or heart rate

What’s the best place to start? Start with a topic Then narrow to a question like “Why does…”, “How does…” or “Does _____ change…” Example: Does drinking energy drinks change how fast I can run? Brainstorm: What information do we need to answer the question? How can we collect/get that information?

Picking topic Pick 3 topics and investigate them: What materials are needed, Is it testable by 5 tries? Can it be done here at school? Narrow down to 2 topics by the end of the period- What 2 topics are possibilities Why do you think these are the best ones? When you are ready to pick one topic: Why is this the one? Is it something interesting to you? Is it testable by 5 or more tries? Can you put all factors of the Scientific Method into it? Is it current? Can you relate this to something in the news? Prepare to pick one topic by Friday September 30

Today Select a partner (optional, no groups larger than 2) Select a category from the list below Narrow it to a topic Create a few questions to investigate Animal Sciences Behavioral Science Biochemistry Health Science Cellular and Molecular Biology Chemistry Computational Biology Earth and Environmental Science Embedded Systems Energy: Chemical Energy: Physical Engineering Mechanics Environmental Engineering Material Science Mathematics Microbiology Physics and Astronomy Plant Science Robotics and Intelligent Machines System Software

Key terms Dependant Variable – responds to the independent variable. It is what will be measured. Independent Variable – The variable I have control of and the one I choose to manipulate. Qualitative data Quantitative data APA format for research paper

Helpful Links http://science.howstuffworks.com/ http://www.sciencebuddies.org/ (kind of elementary, be careful. Not all projects meet my requirements) http://www.education.com/science-fair/ http://www.need.org/sciencefair http://www.yumasupt.org/science-expo.html