1. Science Fair
KOFA

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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?

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. Helpful Links http://science.howstuffworks.com/
(kind of elementary, be careful. Not all projects meet my requirements)