1. Science Fair Projects

2. Choose a TOPIC that interests you!
Life Science….plants, human body, living things
Physical Science…Matter, electricity, sound, light, motion
Earth and Space….weather, stars, sun, earthquakes
Engineering…make a current invention work better

3. Title
Choose a title that reflects your topic and is in the form a question?????????????
How does caffeine affect the growth of a plant?
Does a lemon or potato generate more electricity?
Would a building be more stable during an earthquake if it’s foundation was embedded in sand or clay?

4. Purpose
Write 1 to 3 sentences describing what you want to find out in this project.
Example: The purpose of this project is to find out if a pea plant will grow taller when given caffeine rather than water.

5. Research
Research should be designed to get background information about your topic, before you begin your experiment.
Develop 3 questions that you want to answer about your topic.
Example: Is caffeine a stimulant? How often should plants be watered? Other than water, are there other liquids people use to water their plants?
Try to use various sources for your research.
Suggested sources:
Books
Magazines
Newspapers
Internet

6. Hypothesis Make your guess
Use your research to make an educated guess about how you think your experiment will turn out.
Use the “ If I __________ then I think _____”format
Example: If I pour 100ml of coffee on four pea plants and pour 100ml of water in another four pea plants, then I think the plants with coffee will grow taller because caffeine will stimulate the plants.

7. Procedure Design your experiment
Design your experiment so that they only test for one thing.
Make sure that you do the same things to all groups of objects being tested.
Example: If you are testing plants:
Use the same seeds.
Plant all of them with the same soil.
Put them all in the same amount of light for the same amount of time.
The only thing that should be different about the plants is that one received coffee and the other water.

8. Materials
Make a complete list of everything you will use in your experiment.
Tell how many and how much of each object used.
Use metric measures only.
Example: Water each plant with a 100 ml of water daily.
Non-example: Water the plant daily.

9. Procedure
Write down step-by-step directions on how to do your experiment.
Do not leave anything out!
Make sure you do THREE trials and find the AVERAGE!!!!!
Have a friend or sibling follow your step by step procedure to see if they can recreate the experiment. You will identify what you need to include!!!

10. Procedure Get 8 pea plants ( 100 cm tall).
Place 4 pea plants on each tray.
Label one set of plants “Caffeine”.
Label the second set “Water”.
Pour 100ml of coffee( with caffeine ) onto the soil of each plant twice a week.
Pour 100ml of water onto the soil of each plant twice a week.
Measure each plant with a metric ruler every other day.
Record data in record book.

11. MAKE CHARTS AND GRAPHS Day 5 Day 10 Day 15 Average Caffeine 10mm 15 mm
water
5mm
6mm
10 mm
7 mm

12. Results
Using your data write a few sentences how your experiment turned out.
Example:
From reading my charts and graphs, I know that Plant Group #1 (water)grew an average of 7 mm with 100ml of water. Plant Group #2 (caffeine) grew and average of 14 mm with 100ml of water. The Plant Group that was given coffee grew 7 cm more on the average than the Plant Group that was given water.

13. Conclusion
Write down why you think your experiment turned out the way it did, include if your hypothesis was supported or not.
Restate your hypothesis
Include whether your hypothesis was supported or not supported
Draw conclusions about why your results turned out how they did.
Ask a new question!!!!! What if? I wonder?

14. Conclusion
Example:
My hypothesis was supported. The plants that were watered with coffee ( caffeine ) grew taller than those that were given water. Therefore, caffeine has a positive effect on the growth of pea plants. This may be due the fact that caffeine is a stimulant. The caffeine could have stimulated the plant to grow.

15. Future Considerations
Tell what variable you would change if you could do the experiment again.
Tell how you might take your experiment to the next step.

16. Future Considerations
Example
If I could do this experiment again , the variable I would change would be the amount of caffeine I would place in each plant group. I would use 50ml for plant group #1, 100ml for plant group #2, and 150ml for plant group #3. I would also have three “control groups” of plants. One would get 50ml of water. One would get 100ml of water. And one would get 150ml of water. I want to see which amount of caffeine helps plants grow the tallest.

17. Make Your Board

18. Make your Board

19. Helpful Resources Science Fair Web Pages
Best site for help through out project!
This is a good site explaining the parts of a science fair project.
A web site for children to use in setting up their science fair project
A great site! It has info for parents, teachers, and students. It has project ideas, research tools, and tip sheets for all kinds of projects.

20. Bringing It Together Keys for success:
Make a time-line and stick to it.
Parental support
Ask questions
Break it up into manageable chunks