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Science Fair Success!Tips for an awesome science fair project…
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Prepare a short explanation or “speech” to effectively communicate your project to judges and attendees
Important info:- How did you get your idea?- How did you do your experiment?- What were your main findings? - What did you learn from your results
and could you have done differently to reduce error?
Communication is Key…
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Background research: What is the question you are trying to answer? What kind of info would be useful in trying to answer it?
Why should people care about what you’re doing?
How does the topic you’re studying affect everyday life? How can it be applied?
Introduction
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What is it? An educated guess about how you think your project will turn out. (NOT a question!)
Express your hypothesis using your dependent and independent variables.
For example: Adding fertilizer (independent variable) to plant pots will result in faster plant growth rate (dependent variable) compared to plant pots that do not receive fertilizer.
Hypothesis
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Make sure your hypothesis is TESTABLE, meaning that both your variables can be easily measured!
Avoid vague hypotheses!For example: Adding plants to an
aquarium makes fish healthier. Better: Adding plants to an aquarium
increases fish growth rate (or reproductive success)
Hypothesis
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Include a materials list How will you change your independent
variable? How will you measure the impact this will have on your dependent variable?
Make sure you only manipulate your independent variable and that all other control variables stay constant.
For example: How does temperature affect running speed in lizards?
same species, same sex, same size, same age for all experimental lizards…
Methods
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Make sure to include information about sample size (n) or the number of trials used in your methods.
When appropriate, distinguish experimental groups from control groups.
Methods
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Analyzing your data: Review your data; Is it complete? Do you need
more trials or replicates? Mistakes? Calculate an average for different trials of your
experiment, when appropriate. Alternately, you could use ratios, proportions or
individual data points…depends on the data! Become familiar with Microsoft Excel if necessary.
Results
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Graphs:- Include a descriptive title.- Place independent variable on x-axis and dependent
variable on y-axis.- Label your axes! - Units of measurement (cm, °C, mL, etc.) - Use a different color for each data series and include a
legend. Bar graph: comparing different trials or different experimental
groups independent variable non-numerical XY-Line graph: relationship between dep. and indep.
variables both numerical Pie graph: shows proportions/percentages of a whole
Results
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Bar Graphs
synthetic organic control0
5
10
15
20
25
Effects of fertilizers on plant growth
fetilizer type
aver
age
plan
t he
ight
(cm
)
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XY-Line Graphs
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 350
2
4
6
8
Lizard Speed as a Function of Temperature
Temperature (C)
Spee
d (k
m/h
r)
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 1405
10152025
Effect of aphids on plant height
BasilRadish
# of aphids
plan
t he
ight
(cm
)
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Pie Chart0.04
0.580.12
0.09
0.17
Proportion of insect visitors to P. parryi
WaspsBeesFliesHummingbirdsButterflies
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Summarize your results. Does your data support your hypothesis? If your results DON’T support your
hypothesis, you are NOT wrong! Don’t change your hypothesis!
Instead present what your next steps would be and what kind of error you may have encountered.
*Don’t use the word “prove”…data only supports or doesn’t support your hypothesis.
Conclusions
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Make a list of questions that you think the judges will ask and practice answering them.
Use bright and colorful photos/drawings to catch audience’s attention
Place your sections in order from left to right and focus on images/figures in the center.
Additional Tips…