{"id":182,"date":"2008-12-11T08:34:19","date_gmt":"2008-12-11T15:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.perfectscienceprojects.com\/?p=191"},"modified":"2008-12-11T08:34:19","modified_gmt":"2008-12-11T15:34:19","slug":"science-fair-survival-tips-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awesomescienceprojects.com\/blog\/?p=182","title":{"rendered":"Science Fair Survival Tips, Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How to laser in on the scientific method and make it work for you and your project&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>First and foremost, <strong>your project must answer a question<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 That&#8217;s pretty much the heart of the scientific method&#8230; what question does YOUR project answer?\u00c2\u00a0 Here are a few examples to get you started:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Does more fuel result in a higher rocket altitude<\/li>\n<li>Does it matter what angle the solar cell makes with the sun for maximum output?<\/li>\n<li>How much weight can a kid lift using leverage?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can either state your question as a &#8216;question&#8217;, or rewrite it as a hypothesis&#8230; but in either case, be sure it&#8217;s the most prominent thing on your display board.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll need to figure out a way to <strong>clearly demonstrate how you did your experiment<\/strong>, and what you used to do it.\u00c2\u00a0 This is your Materials and Methods section, and this is a great place for photos.\u00c2\u00a0 You can itemize your list of steps, cal out a shopping list of materials, and outline your variable and controls.\u00c2\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.superchargedsciencefairprojects.com\/?p=114\">Click here for more detail about how to vary your experiment using the scientific method.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>After you&#8217;ve run your tests, gathered your data, taken your photos, you&#8217;ll need to <strong>analyze your data and finalize results<\/strong>. Which run had the highest rocket altitude? Which purified sample was the cleanest? This is a great place for tables, charts, and graphs that show your results all in one swoop.\u00c2\u00a0 Can you make a graph that a newbie can instantly pick out your results?<\/p>\n<p>Once you&#8217;ve finalized your data into concrete results, you&#8217;ll need a section for <strong>Conclusions &amp; Recommendations<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 This section basically answers the initial question or hypothesis you had.\u00c2\u00a0 No, more fuel did not result in a higher rocket altitude gain, but if you were to do further experimentation (which is currently out of your scope &#8211; you&#8217;re doing school project, not working for NASA), you&#8217;d test out <em>less <\/em>fuel.\u00c2\u00a0 Extra credit points given for recommendations for further experiments that could be done as a follow-up to your own.<\/p>\n<p>No need to re-invent the wheel!\u00c2\u00a0 <strong>References <\/strong>are the final step to every great book, project, and scientist-in-the-making.\u00c2\u00a0 Take advantage of other people&#8217;s work by standing on the shoulders of giants&#8230; and be sure to give credit where&#8217;s it&#8217;s due!\u00c2\u00a0 This may or may not make it onto your board (depending on how much you relied on outside sources for your work), but have a bibliography (computer-printed) sheet on hand in case you&#8217;re asked.<\/p>\n<p>Well, there you have it &#8211; the best &#8220;Don&#8217;t forget these!&#8221; tips for making a great science fair project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How to laser in on the scientific method and make it work for you and your project&#8230; First and foremost, your project must answer a question.\u00c2\u00a0 That&#8217;s pretty much the heart of the scientific method&#8230; what question does YOUR project answer?\u00c2\u00a0 Here are a few examples to get you started: Does more fuel result in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-project-tips-tricks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awesomescienceprojects.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awesomescienceprojects.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awesomescienceprojects.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awesomescienceprojects.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awesomescienceprojects.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.awesomescienceprojects.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awesomescienceprojects.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awesomescienceprojects.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awesomescienceprojects.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}