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Good Projects
What Makes a Good Project?
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As kids and parents think about Science projects, they
sometimes wonder how to pick a topic - not how to find an idea,
but how to decide if the idea is a good one.
Select an idea that
1. You are interested in and a subject you like
to think about.
2. You can do a test to find an answer to a question. |
A good Science project
for grades 5 and up is an experiment
- that means it's a test to find an answer to a question you
have. For example, if you are interested in bugs and you saw
some ants moving real slowly once on a cold day, you might test
to see what effect temperature has on the rate at which bugs
move. You'd get some bugs, find a way to make their container
a little colder than normal and measure how fast they moved somehow.
Then you'd make their container a little warmer than normal and
measure what happened then.
Please follow the steps and requirements of Scientific Method in
your experiments.
Younger
students in grades 1 to 4 may try demonstrations or simple reports
as their science project. Demonstrations, making models
and writing reports will help you to understand more details
about a subject and enhance your presentation skills. For example
make a model of human eye, make a simple electric circuit, or
make a compound machine.
3. You can do it with only a little help from parents, teachers
and friends.
The reason to do a project is because it's fun and you will
learn something you didn't know before. Having someone else help
too much takes away some of your fun and you don't learn as much.
Your project doesn't have to be perfect, just neat and following
the scientific method. Don't be afraid to ask for help if you
really need it.
4. It doesn't hurt or scare people or animals, including you.
It's not only a bad idea, it is also against the rules of
most
science fairs to hurt or badly
scare people or animals as part of an experiment. You also may
not use dangerous materials in your project except in very special
situations when you get permission from the coordinators. Ask
about this from your parents and teacher.
5. It's a project that, even when you are done with it, makes
you think of new things you want to know.
One way to tell if you have a good project is to see if the
results make you wonder about other things. Did doing the project,
or reading or seeing what happened make you think of other questions
you are curious about? That's a great project!
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