Science Fair Tips for Students

Created by high school student Kevin Temmer, this animated video is an excellent way to get students ready to complete a science fair project. The 15-minute video is a super student-friendly, step-by-step guide to science experiments that will ease science fair stress for students of all ages.

Based on this video, here's a text guide that you can also share with students.

Getting Started: Choosing a Science Fair Topic

To get started, you need to come up with an Initial Question or Purpose for your experiment.

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• Ask yourself: what do I wonder about?
• Brainstorm different things in nature or the world around you that you don’t understand or wonder how it works.
• Example: How do different liquids affect how plants grow?

Preparing & Predicting

Before you can create your experiment, you need to learn more about your topic through Research.

• For our liquids and plants experiment, you should find out how plants grow and what they need to survive and flourish.

Based on your research, you can now make a Hypothesis, or a Prediction, about what is likely to happen in your experiment.

• While you can’t predict the future, you can make an Educated Guess about what will be good or bad for plants growth.
• Phrase your hypothesis as an If/Then statement and describe WHY you think that will happen.
• Example: If a type of plant was exposed water, soda or a sports drink, Then the plant exposed to water would grow the most Because water lacks harmful chemicals that could halt the growth of a plant.

Be SPECIFIC! Ask yourself:

• What kind of plant?
• What kinds of water, soda and sports drinks will we use?

Designing Your Experiment

Identify Variables

• Controlled: MUST remain the same for each subject
• Examples: type of plant, temperature where plants are kept, amount of liquid given to each plant

• Manipulated (Independent): MUST be different for each subject
• Example: type of liquid given to each plant

• Responding (Dependent): How test subjects respond to the independent variables
• Example: How much each plant grows

• Gather and prepare the necessary Materials to perform the experiment
• What kind?
• How much?
• Example: What type of plant will you use? How much liquid will you use?

• Plan Your Procedure
• List the steps to you experiment. Remember: keep it simple, so anyone could repeat the process.

Do Experiment

Follow the steps you listed for the procedure.

Remember to pay close Attention

Record ALL Observations: Collecting Data

• Qualitative – characteristics or what you see
• Quantitative – values or measurements

Repeat your experiment before interpreting results. This way, you can make sure human error doesn’t affect your results.

Interpret Results and present them in an organized manner using graphs or diagrams

Draw Conclusions

Was your hypothesis was correct?

Create your Display Board, including title, pictures and any relevant information about your experiment and the results

• Make it look good
• Make the experiment process and results clear to the Science Fair judges

Prepare a Presentation

• Describe what you did in your experiment
• Be prepared to answer questions about your project
• Practice with your parents or science teacher

Celebrate – you’re done!

Share your tips for introducing science experiments in the comments section!

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