Science+Fair



Sometimes in life a question comes to us which we can not 'look up' it is something we must investigate for ourselves.
 * Why would we want to use the scientific inquiry process?**

For example, when eating breakfast, Melissa notices the statement on her cereal box, "contains half as much fat as other leading brands." She has noticed this statement before and in fact, it is why she chose the cereal. Until this morning, however, she hadn't recognized it as claim - one that she can evaluate. She studies the nutritional information on the side of the box and compares it to the other boxes on the table. She finds that her cereal has less fat than some and more than others. She recognizes that she was influenced by the claim on the box, having chosen the first cereal thinking that it had the least fat when her favourite cereal contained less! Melissa reconsiders her decision after having evaluated the evidence for the claim. To investigate this claim Melissa will need to behave like a scientist in the course of everyday life. What does this mean? If behaving like a scientist or mathematician is more than knowing a set of thinking skills relevant to science and math, what else is it and what can we do to learn to do it?

We must...
 * Be open-minded and explore alternative views and generate multiple options.
 * Wonder, probe, find problems and ask questions
 * Clarify and seek to understand clearly, search out connections and explanations and notice when things are not clear
 * Be planful (that is to strategically plan), set goals, execute plans and deadlines and envision outcomes
 * Be careful, precise, organised and thorough
 * Seek and evaluate reasons, look for evidence, justification and rule out variables
 * Be aware of your own thinking and monitor your own flow of thinking (think about your own thinking)

Tishman, Jay & Perkins (1992) Scientific questions for testing need to be formed differently to the broader questions of a research inquiry. A scientific inquiry questions must be investigated with a test, you will need to research but this research will support or explain your data. Your data is at the heart of a successful scientific inquiry. To get reliable (trustworthy) data you need to structure your question so that data that is collected can be measured, you need to be able to compare you sets of data so you can see patterns and reason about what these may mean.

Your question therefore has to be...
 * Specific (about affect on one thing)
 * Measurable (able to be tested and measured in some way)

You need to develop a hypothesis to test your question.

To collect reliable data and exclude variables you must design an appropriate methodology and really think through how you can test your hypothesis. You must be systematic collecting your data. You need to record your data carefully so it is easy to interpret later. You need to be sure that you have ruled out all of the variables. If possible you should replicate your experiment at least 3 times, more is better. Consistent results strengthens the reliability of you data, this is called replication.

You need to decide what the best way to show your results. You may use graphs, images, diagrams, photos of stages of experiments can be very effective for some experiments. If you use a graph it must be the correct graph to best show your data. This graphing site for kids might help you identify which graph will best suit your data. Only use diagrams and images which clearly illustrate what you are trying to show in your results. Make sure they are organised and have a caption. Your great work can be so difficult to follow that it fails to communicate anything.

Discussion At this stage you will need to do some research to help to explain your results. You need to research the science behind your test. Summarise your findings and perhaps reflect on how what you have learnt would be useful to you or others.


 * These sites which may give you ideas for your question/project. Don't just pick any one, take time to think about what really captures your interest and what would be useful to know.**

[|Science Fair Project Resource Guide]- this site gives you tips on how to conduct a Science Fair Project (the advice is mostly relevant but be aware that the site is for American students. Some things might be different for our Science Fair-check with Mrs Walker. [|Hundreds of Science Fair Projects]- this site has ideas, you won't be able to copy these exactly but with Mrs Walker you may come up with a similar idea. [|Science for Kids]- Fun experiments organised by theme. [|Science Fair Project Ideas]- this site has a topic selection wizard.