PROJECT GUIDELINES

General Guidelines for all projects

All projects should be displayed on a tri-fold cardboard presentation panel. A small table space will be available to display the final project.
Presentation panels should include pictures, graphics, tables or graphs when appropriate. Neatness counts!

Collections Projects - Kindergarten and 1st Grade Only

Collection projects are a wonderful way for children to learn basic scientific principals such as categorization, organization, and discovery of variation. Students should find objects of interest and work out a strategy of discovering, collecting, categorizing, organizing, and presenting their collection. Anything can be collected. A collection can be made up of any number of items. Presentations should include the following:

Group and categorize items in your collection according to a set of characteristics that make them similar.
Describe your collection and tell how you chose what to collect.
Describe what you learned about your collection and tell how you chose to group and categorize your collection.
Answer the question, “What did I learn when I looked at all the similarities and variations of this collection?”

Demonstration Projects – Kindergarten and 1st Grade Only

Demonstration projects are an opportunity for children to construct a working example or model of a process that shows a basic scientific principle or reaction. Demonstration projects can be as simple as creating the conditions for mold to grow on bread or dissolving an iron nail in cola or making a parachute. A demonstration project is different than an experimental project in that it doesn’t have a hypothesis. Presentations should include the following:

Describe the project, including the materials and equipment used for the project.
Describe the scientific principle or scientific reaction associated with the project.
Answer the questions, “Did the project demonstrate the expected scientific reaction or effect? What were unplanned effects? What are some future projects suggested by this project?”

Experimental Projects – 2nd through 5th Grade (There is no demonstration project option at these grade levels. Projects must be an investigative experiment and have a hypothesis).

Experimental projects are an opportunity for students to use the scientific method to investigate and test a scientific question they have about an area of science. In experimental projects, students will:

Define the problem (or topic area) in which they are interested in exploring.
Formulate a hypothesis (an educated guess based on your scientific research on the background of the subject)
Design the experiment based on scientific method. For example, an experiment might need a control group that doesn’t get the treatment in the experiment.
Collect, record, organize and analyze data.
Formulate a conclusion – revisit the hypothesis and draw conclusions based on analysis.

Need IDEAS? The public library and local Bookbug bookstore have many science fair project books. There are many internet websites that offer suggestions for science fair projects and help in setting up an experimental project. Be careful when you click on these when they come up on Google, some are for profit science websites that may not be the best for your child. The safest and most solid websites are university or professional science association affiliated (usually .edu or .org extensions). One good site to start looking for ideas is http://www.sciencebuddies.org/