When our daughter entered her first science fair, we kept seeing references to the Internet Public Library Science Fair Project Resource Guide. However, the IPL2 permanently closed… taking the guide with it. Bummer! After now participating in over a half-dozen elementary school science fairs (including a first-place finish!), we created our own guide to help other students go from start to finish in their next science fair project. If this is your first science fair, have fun! If you’ve done it before, we hope this is your best one! Let’s science!
*Images from Unsplash
Overview:
How to Use the STEMium Science Fair Project Ultimate Guide?
If you are just starting off and this is your first science fair, here’s how to get started:
- Start with the STEMium Science Fair Project Roadmap. This is an infographic that “maps” out the process from start to finish and shows all the steps in a visual format.
- Getting Started – Why Do a Science Fair Project. Besides walking through some reasons to do a project, we also share links to examples of national science fair competitions, what’s involved and examples of winning science fair experiments. *Note: this is where you’ll get excited!!
- The Scientific Method – What is It and What’s Involved. One of the great things about a science fair project is that it introduces students to an essential process/concept known as the scientific method. This is simply the way in which we develop a hypothesis to test.
- Start the Process – Find an Idea. You now have a general idea of what to expect at the science fair, examples of winning ideas, and know about the scientific method. You’re ready to get started on your own project. How do you come up with an idea for a science fair project? We have resources on how to use a Google tool, as well as some other strategies for finding an idea.
- Experiment and Build the Project. Time to roll up those sleeves and put on your lab coat.
- Other Resources for the Fair. Along the way, you will likely encounter challenges or get stuck. Don’t give up – it’s all part of the scientific process. Check out our STEMium Resources page for more links and resources from the web. We also have additional experiments like the germiest spot in school, or the alka-seltzer rocket project that our own kids used.
Getting Started – Why Do a Science Fair Project
For many students, participating in the science fair might be a choice that was made FOR you. In other words, something you must do as part of a class. Maybe your parents are making you do it. For others, maybe it sounded like a cool idea. Something fun to try. Whatever your motivation, there are a lot of great reasons to do a science fair project.
- Challenge yourself
- Learn more about science
- Explore cool technology
- Make something to help the world! (seriously!)
- Win prizes (and sometimes even money)
- Do something you can be proud of!
Many students will participate in a science fair at their school. But there are also national competitions that include 1000s of participants. There are also engineering fairs, maker events, and hackathons. It’s an exciting time to be a scientist!! The list below gives examples of national events.
- Regeneron Science Talent Search
- Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair
- Google Science Fair
- Conrad Challenge
- Microsoft Imagine Cup
- JSHS Program
- Exploravision
What’s the Scientific Method?
Before we jump into your project, it’s important to introduce a key concept: The Scientific Method. The scientific method is the framework scientists use to answer their questions and test their hypothesis. The figure below illustrates the steps you’ll take to get to the end, but it starts with asking a question (you’ve already finished the first step!).
After we find a problem/idea to tackle, and dig into some background research, we create a guess on a potential solution. This is known as our hypothesis.
Example of a Hypothesis
My brother can hold his breath underwater longer than I can (“our problem”) –> how can I hold my breath longer? (“our question”) –> if I drink soda with caffeine before I hold my breath, I will be able to stay underwater longer (“our solution”). Our hypothesis is that using caffeine before we go underwater will increase the time we hold our breath. We’re not sure if that is a correct solution or not at this stage – just taking a guess.
Once we have a hypothesis, we design an experiment to TEST our hypothesis. First, we will change variables/conditions one at a time while keeping everything else the same, so we can compare the outcomes.
Experimental Design Example
Using our underwater example, maybe we will test different drinks and count how long I can hold my breath. Maybe we can also see if someone else can serve as a “control” – someone who holds their breath but does not drink caffeine. For the underwater experiment, we can time in seconds how long I hold my breath before I have a drink and then time it again after I have my caffeine drink. I can also time how long I stay underwater when I have a drink without caffeine.
Then, once we finish with our experiment, we analyze our data and develop a conclusion.
- How many seconds did I stay underwater in the different situations?
- Which outcome is greater? Did caffeine help me hold my breath longer?
Finally, (and most important), we present our findings. Imagine putting together a poster board with a chart showing the number of seconds I stayed underwater in the different conditions.
Hopefully you have a better sense of the scientific method. If you are completing a science fair project, sticking with these steps is super important. Just in case there is any lingering confusion, here are some resources for learning more about the scientific method:
- Science Buddies – Steps of the Scientific Method
- Ducksters – Learn About the Scientific Method
- Biology4kids – Scientific Method
- National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences – Scientific Method
What Science Fair Project Should I Do?
We won’t sugar coat it… in our experience, this is the hardest part. One thing to keep in mind: coming up with ideas is the hardest part of life, not just science fairs. Think about it. Whenever you’re with a group of people and you try to come up with something to do, somewhere to eat, there’s usually that awkward pause/silence followed by “I don’t know. What do you want to do?” There are 100s of blogs, magazines and experts who give entrepreneurs advice on coming with new ideas for business.
And science is no different.
Just know that if you can get through the idea part, the rest of the science fair is relatively smooth sailing. Remember to keep an open mind and a positive outlook. Each year 100s of 1000s of kids, teenagers and college students come up with new projects and ideas to test. You’ve got this!
What Makes a Great Science Fair Project? Start with a Problem To Solve
So, you’ve got a project deadline coming up. You’ve got a partner. What you don’t have yet is an idea to work on. What do we mean by idea? This is simply a TOPIC that you are going to focus your project on. Maybe it will be a project on chemistry or volcanos. Perhaps you’ll investigate plants or slime.
As we discuss below, good science experiments attempt to answer a QUESTION. Why is the sky blue? Why does my dog bark at her reflection? First, we will step through some ways to find TESTABLE QUESTIONS. These questions that you create will be what you work on for your science fair project. Pick something fun, something interesting and something that you are excited about. Not sure what that looks like? Step through some of the tips below for help.
Use the Google Science Fair Idea Generator
Are you surprised Google made a tool for science fair projects?? Our post called the low-stress way to find a science fair project gives a more in-depth overview about how to use it. It’s a great first stop if you’re early in the brainstorming process.
Answer your own questions
Sure, you could do a project on rocks and categorize them or something, but it’s probably not going to be a) fun and b) win you any prizes. It’s also going to be hard to follow the scientific method which is probably how you’ll be judged. The best science fair projects in our experience are usually the ones that answer questions. So, if you are planning on entering a science fair (or maybe HAVE TO do one), start writing down ANY questions that pop in your head. Examples:
- What type of music makes you run faster?
- Can boys hold their breath underwater longer than girls?
- How can I be sure the sandwich I bought is gluten free?
- If we plant 100 trees in our neighborhood, will the air be cleaner?
Still stuck? Get inspiration from other science fair projects
Now, some people will argue doing a project someone else has done before isn’t going to win you any prizes. And we get that. However, for first-timers or “young” scientists, we think it’s more important to get exposure to the process than it is to be super original. In my past life, I was a scientist. In the lab, it was important to come up with new, testable questions. However, sometimes you repeat experiments that other people already performed. If you get a different result or find a different explanation, that helps drive new science.
Check out the Getting Started section and look at some of the winning science project ideas, our STEMium experiments and our Resource page. We’ve presented a ton of potential idea starters for you – take time to run through some of these, but our suggestion is to give yourself a deadline to pick an idea. Going through the lists could take you longer than you think, and in many cases sometimes it’s just better to pick something and go for it! The next section will take you through how to create testable questions for your project.
Starting Your Project: Find A Testable Question
The best experiments start with a question. Taking that a step further, the questions you useyou’re your science fair project should be ones that are TESTABLE. That means something you can measure. Let’s look at an example. Let’s say I’m super excited about baking. OH YEA!! I love baking. Specifically, baking cakes. In fact, I love baking cakes so much that I want to do a science project related to cakes. We’ve got two questions on cakes that we created. Which question below could be most useful for a science fair project:
1) Can eating cake before a test improve your score?
2) Why isn’t carrot cake more popular than chocolate cake?
The second question isn’t necessarily a bad question to pick. You could survey people and perhaps tackle the question that way. However, chances are you will get a lot of different answers and it will probably take a lot of surveys to start to pick up a trend.
Although, the first question might be a little easier. How would you test this? Maybe you pick one type of cake and one test that you give people. If you can get five people to take the test after eating cake and five people take the test with no cake, you can compare the test results. There might be other variables beyond cake that you could test (example: age, sex, education). But you can see that the first question is probably a little easier to test. The first question is also a little easier to come up with a hypothesis.
At this point, you’ve got an idea. That was the hard part! Now it’s time to think a little more about that idea and focus it into a scientific question that is testable and that you can create a hypothesis around.
What makes a question “testable”?
Testable questions are ones that can be measured and should focus on what you will change. In our first cake question, we would be changing whether or not people eat cake before a test. If we are giving them all the same test and in the same conditions, you could compare how they do on the test with and without cake. As you are creating your testable question, think about what you WILL CHANGE (cake) and what you are expecting to be different (test scores). Cause and effect. Check out this reference on testable questions for more details.
Outline Your Science Project – What Steps Should I Take?
Congratulations! If you’ve made it this far you’ve got an idea. Since that’s one of the toughest hurdles, pat yourself on the back. You also know all about the scientific method. You probably also have a testable question. You’re on a roll!! Now let’s move on to shaping out what our project will cover – and what we actually have to DO to finish our project.
Do Background Research / Create Hypothesis
Science experiments typically start with a question (example: Which cleaning solution eliminates more germs?). The questions might come up because of a problem. For example, maybe you’re an engineer and you are trying to design a new line of cars that can drive at least 50 mph faster. Your problem is that the car isn’t fast enough. After looking at what other people have tried to do to get the car to go faster, and thinking about what you can change, you try to find a solution or an answer. When we talk about the scientific method, the proposed answer is referred to as the HYPOTHESIS.
At this point, you will need to conduct some research about the problem to come up with a hypothesis. How do we do that – how do we brainstorm research content? The easiest way is to start asking more questions. For example, if you’ve seen our germiest spot in school experiment, you’ll see that we are trying to learn more about germs. Specifically, some of these questions: What are they? How do germs spread? Where do they grow the most? What makes germs grow faster or slower? Who discovered germs? Once you’ve come up with a set of research questions, start finding sources to explore further and try to answer them. Some spots/references to use:
The information you gather to answer these research questions can be used in your report or in your board. This will go in the BACKGROUND section. For resources that you find useful, make sure you note the web address where you found it, and save in a Google Doc for later.
Additional Research Tips
For your own science fair project, there will likely be rules that will already be set by the judges/teachers/school. Make sure you get familiar with the rules FOR YOUR FAIR and what needs to be completed to participate. Typically, you will have to do some research into your project, you’ll complete experiments, analyze data, make conclusions and then present the work in a written report and on a poster board. Make a checklist of all these “to do” items. Key things to address:
- Question being answered – this is your testable question
- Hypothesis – what did you come up with and why
- Experimental design – how are you going to test your hypothesis
- Conclusions – why did you reach these and what are some alternative explanations
- What would you do next? Answering a testable question usually leads to asking more questions and judges will be interested in how you think about next steps.
Need more help? Check out these additional resources on how to tackle a science fair project:
- Developing a Science Fair Project – Wiley
- Successful Science Fair Projects – Washington University
- Science Fair Planning Guide – Chattahoochee Elementary
Experiment – Time to Test That Hypothesis
Way to go! You’ve found a problem and identified a testable question. You’ve done background research and even created a hypothesis. It’s time to put it all together now and start designing your experiment. Two experiments we have outlined in detail – germiest spot in school and alka-seltzer rockets – help show how to set up experiments to test variable changes.
The folks at ThoughtCo have a great overview on the different types of variables – independent, dependent and controls. You need to identify which ones are relevant to your own experiment and then test to see how changes in the independent variable impacts the dependent variable. Sounds hard? Nope. Let’s look at an example. Let’s say our hypothesis is that cold weather will let you flip a coin with more heads than tails. The independent variable is the temperature. The dependent variable is the number of heads or tails that show up. Our experiment could involve flipping a coin fifty times in different temperatures (outside, in a sauna, in room temperature) and seeing how many heads/tails we get.
One other important point – write down all the steps you take and the materials you use!! This will be in your final report and project board. Example – for our coin flipping experiment, we will have a coin (or more than one), a thermometer to keep track of the temperature in our environment. Take pictures of the flipping too!
Analyze Results – Make Conclusions
Analyzing means adding up our results and putting them into pretty pictures. Use charts and graphs whenever you can. In our last coin flipping example, you’d want to include bar charts of the number of heads and tails at different temperatures. If you’re doing some other type of experiment, take pictures during the different steps to document everything.
This is the fun part…. Now we get to see if we answered our question! Did the weather affect the coin flipping? Did eating cake help us do better on our test?? So exciting! Look through what the data tells you and try to answer your question. Your hypothesis may / may not be correct. It’s not important either way – the most important part is what you learned and the process. Check out these references for more help:
Presentation Time – Set Up Your Board, Practice Your Talk
Personally, the presentation is my favorite part! First, you get to show off all your hard work and look back at everything you did! Additionally, science fair rules should outline the specific sections that need to be in the report, and in the poster board – so, be like Emmett from Lego Movie and read the instructions. Here’s a loose overview of what you should include:
- Title – what is it called.
- Introduction / background – here’s why you’re doing it and helping the judges learn a bit about your project.
- Materials/Methods – what you used and the steps in your experiment. This is so someone else could repeat your experiment.
- Results – what was the outcome? How many heads/tails? Include pictures and graphs.
- Conclusions – was your hypothesis correct? What else would you like to investigate now? What went right and what went wrong?
- References – if you did research, where did you get your information from? What are your sources?
The written report will be very similar to the final presentation board. The board that you’ll prepare is usually a three-panel board set up like the picture shown below.
To prepare for the presentation, you and your partner should be able to talk about the following:
- why you did the experiment
- the hypothesis that was tested
- the data results
- the conclusions.
It’s totally OK to not know an answer. Just remember this is the fun part!
And that’s it! YOU DID IT!!
Science fair projects have been great opportunities for our kids to not only learn more about science, but to also be challenged and push themselves. Independent projects like these are usually a great learning opportunity. Has your child completed a science fair project that they are proud of? Include a pic in the comments – we love to share science!! Please also check out our STEMium Resources page for more science fair project tips and tricks.
STEMomma is a mother & former scientist/educator. She loves to find creative, fun ways to help engage kids in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math). When she’s not busy in meetings or carpooling kids, she loves spending time with the family and dreaming up new experiments or games they can try in the backyard.
