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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.
Incorporating visual learning strategies into your teaching is important for...
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!