Successful Science Fair Projects
By Lynne Bleeker
(Science teacher, science fair organizer and judge)
A successful science fair project does not have to be expensive
or even terribly time-consuming. However, it does require some
planning and careful thought. Projects become frustrating to
students, parents and teachers when they are left to the last
minute and thus don't have the chance to be as good as they
possibly can. You can't rush good science!
A Science Fair Project display usually asks that you include
certain sections. Your particular science fair rules and guidelines
may use slightly different words to describe them, but be sure you
address each of them as you go through your project and then again
as you write it up.
Sections of a Science Fair Project
Title
Ideally the title of your project should be catchy, an
"interest-grabber," but it should also describe the project well
enough that people reading your report can quickly figure out what
you were studying. You will want to write your Title and Background
sections AFTER you have come up with a good question to study.
Background or Purpose
The background section is where you include information that you
already know about your subject and/or you tell your project
readers why you chose the project you did. What were you hoping to
find out from the project?
The Question (Or Selecting Your Subject)
Probably the most difficult part of a science fair project is
coming up with a good subject to research. I suggest to my students
that they:
A. think about WHAT INTERESTS them.
B. think of a TESTABLE QUESTION about the subject.
If you are doing a project on something that interests you, you
will likely enjoy the research more and stick with it long enough
to get some good data. Remember, you are being a scientist.
Scientists go to work each 
day because
they are interested in what they are studying and because they are
curious to know the answers to the questions they are
researching.
If you are working to ANSWER A QUESTION, you will be doing real
research. (Often students tell me that their parents have suggested
doing something such as "volcanoes" or "tornadoes." It is possible
to build cute models of these things, but it is pretty hard to come
up with questions about them that are testable with materials
available to the average person and in the time frame between when
the science fair project is assigned and when it is due!) Another
problem occurs when students need special equipment to test a
question. For example, it might be interesting to find out if
television commercials really are louder than regular programming
... but how would you test that without a decible-meter?
Some of the best science fair projects I have seen have also
been the simplest. For example, I had students whose parents bought
"off-brands" of cereal. They wondered if those brands were really
any different from the name brands. They bought 3 or 4 different
brands of the same type of cereal and asked permission to test them
with the whole class. They had their peers evaluate them for taste,
appearance, and sogginess in milk after 1 minute. They also did a
cost comparison. They got a lot of interesting data! (I won't tell
you what they found out in case you want to do something similar!)
Other students who like sports have done experiments with the
equipment for their sport: Do new tennis balls bounce higher than
old ones? Do basketballs that are fully inflated bounce better than
flatter ones? These projects just require some tennis balls or
basketballs, some volunteer "bouncers" and a meter tape or meter
stick!
There are many good sources for science fair project questions.
The Neuroscience For Kids Web Site has some neuroscience-related
questions that might spark your interest. Projects involving food -
tasting, smelling etc - can be very simple to set up yet also very
interesting. "Can blindfolded people taste the difference between
...?" You can also get lots of ideas from science trade books, such
as Janice Van Cleave's books ("Biology for Every Kid" etc). If you
browse through these books at a store or library, they may give you
some ideas for a project of your own.
Project Guidelines
Be sure to carefully read the project guidelines for your
particular science fair. Rules vary greatly from fair to fair in
what is allowed, both for safety and ethical/animal use
considerations. Obviously, experiments should not involve illegal
substances or involve clearly preventable danger to you or your
research subjects.
Some situations may require clarification from your teacher
and/or parents. For example, suppose you were doing an experiment
on the effects of caffeine (or chocolate) on concentration or
reflexes. Think about the possible consequences! You would need to
get permission before providing large amounts of high-caffeine soda
pop. Some science fairs discourage the use of food in experiments
because of food allergies. Again, check with your science fair
guidebook or your teacher, and be sure you clearly communicate to
your (human) research subjects what you will be asking them to
consume so they can tell you if they have allergies.
Some science fairs allow experiments with live animals and
others don't. For example, one classic experiment (found in most
older science fair project books) involves changing the temperature
of fish tank water and seeing what it does to the respiration rate
(breathing) of goldfish. In some places around the country, that
experiment would not be allowed at all. In others, you would need a
special permission form guaranteeing that you will take good care
of the animal. In other places, they don't yet have such
restrictions. Again, use common sense. I once had students do a
very clever experiment to see if their hamster or their cat could
learn to go through a maze more quickly. This experiment, though it
had animal subjects, obviously involved no chance of harming the
cat or the hamster so I gave them permission to do it. Generally
you are safest if your experiments involve plants or insects, and
both types of organisms can lead to some fascinating studies! If
you REALLY want to do an experiment with your pet, be prepared to
explain what information you are hoping to gain from the experiment
and how you will ensure the safety of the animal.
Prediction or Hypothesis
As soon as you come up with a testable question, you will
probably instantly have a hypothesis (prediction) about what the
results will be from your testing. (Isn't the human brain an
amazing thing?!) It's a good idea to write this down before
starting, because it may change as you go about your
experimenting.
Materials and Methods
Once you have come up with a question that you can actually test
with materials at your disposal, you need to figure out how to set
up the tests. If you will have a survey for your participants to
fill out, get that written up and duplicated. If you will need a
chart to write down your test results, get it made. If you take the
time to make it look nice with a straight-edge, you can include the
actual chart or survey instrument in your project write-up. This
really impresses the judges!
Let your teacher or science fair coordinator know what your
question is and how you plan to go about testing it. They will
likely have some good suggestions to save you lots of time and
trouble. Once you have their go-ahead, then make a list of your
materials, gather them up and GET STARTED! If you are really doing
science, you will probably find that some things don't go quite as
you had predicted they would. You will have to modify your research
methods or even your original question. You may have to add more
materials to your list. My students often get discouraged by this,
but actually it is a good thing. This is how science really
works!
Keep good notes of the things you have tried and plan to include
even the "didn't-works" and "mess-ups" in your project report. Be
sure to try your experiment several times to be sure you have
enough data to make a logical conclusion. If you tell me that one
brand of cereal gets soggier in milk but you've only tried each
cereal in one cup of milk, I would suspect that maybe it was a
fluke; you need lots of "trials" (generally at least 3; the more,
the better) for believable data. Remember, too, that you want to
keep all of the experimental factors (variables) the same except
the one you are testing. In the cereal experiment, it wouldn't be
fair to all of the cereals if you left one brand in milk for one
minute and tried the others after two minutes or something like
that. Again, GET STARTED EARLY on carrying out your project. You
can't still be doing the experiment the day before the project is
due and expect to have a first-class write-up! 
In science fair projects as in life, "a picture is worth a
thousand words." Plan to take pictures of the materials you used
and of the experiment as it is being carried out. If you get
started early, you will have time to have the pictures developed
and include them as part of your report. (Or if you are lucky and
your school has cameras that will take pictures and put them right
into the computer, you will have time to learn how to do that and
print them out for your report.)
Results or Data
The results section is where you tell your reader the actual
numbers (or other data) that you got as you were doing the
experiment. (In the tennis ball experiment, this would be a table
with the different brands of balls and the actual heights each of
them bounced on each trial.) You might also include a graph, if
your data lends itself to it. But you do not tell your
interpretation of the data - that's for the last section.
Conclusion
In the conclusion you finally get to tell your readers what you
found out from the experiment, or how you interpret your data.
Students often like to use this section to expand upon how much
they liked doing the experiment (and how wise the teacher was to
require such a good assignment!) or how much they learned from it
... but really this section should be focused on what you learned
about your original question and hypothesis. For example, DID
cheaper cereals get soggier in milk faster?
The Display
Project displays tend to be another source of great frustration
to students, teachers and parents ... but they don't have to be!
Again, what you need to do is PLAN AHEAD and then THINK OF YOUR
AUDIENCE. Remember that they weren't there when you did the
experiment, so what seems obvious to you will not be obvious to
them unless you make it extremely clear.
Check to see if your science fair has any special rules to guide
your display. For example, are there rules about the size of your
display? Ideally, choose a display board that is cardboard and a
"tri-fold," meaning that it folds into a middle and two side
sections. This shape is the most stable and will stand up in the
science fair display. These boards can be ordered from supply
companies and are also usually available at stores like Office
Depot. Check and see if your school has some from last year that
can be re-used. This is good for the environment and for your
pocketbook! I strongly advise against the flimsier posterboard,
which tends to fall down easily and irritates teachers and judges.
Also avoid wood backboards, which are VERY difficult to
transport!
Once you have written or typed up all of the above sections, be
sure you have TITLES for each section that are large and legible
(I'd suggest 24 point or so on the computer). That way if people
have questions about some part of your project, they can go right
to the section they need to answer their question. Arrange the
sections of the report on the board in a way that is attractive and
also logical. The purpose and hypothesis should be easy to see
right away. An art teacher can give you some good suggestions about
how to use paper of different colors to draw attention to parts of
the report and make it look terrific!
Other Science Fair Web Sites
Copyright © 1996-2006, Eric H. Chudler All Rights
Reserved.