Science

February 5th: Experimental Question Due (1st page)

February 14th: Materials and Procedure Due (2nd page)

March 20th: Experiment Data and Conclusion Due

March 30th: Final display due at school! You must have your final project board at school this day- COMPLETED! Practice presentations and teacher grading will take place!

April 2nd: Science Fair in the morning! Public viewing from 3:35-6.

Due Dates:

Click the pictures below to view powerpoints with more information on the science fair!

Parent Powerpoint Student Powerpoint

Need More Info?

Everyone has their own interests and hobbies, so why not create a science experiment involving what you enjoy? Do not just simply google 'science experiements' and pick a random idea. Your experiement should be somewhat fun and interesting! Make sure, once you pick an idea, you research and find background information about your topic so you can become an expert. You never know what the Science Fair judges may ask you!

Keep in mind this shouldn't be a demonstation, such as, "This is how mentos makes Diet Coke explode." It should instead be written in one of two ways:

1) Does A affect B?

2) Does A have an effect on B?

Question:

Hypothesis:

A hypothesis is an educated guess or prediction. This should be created BEFORE you begin your experiment. The hypothesis should be a complete sentence andinclude an explanation for your prediction, if possible. Write it out in an "if/then" statement. If your hypothesis is proven to be wrong, no worries, This is how progress is made in the science world!!!

Your material list should be created before starting any work on the experiment. All materials need to be collected prior to starting experiment. Either write this out in a bulleted or numbered list. Be specific with the amounts needed.

Bad example: A ball.

Good example: A brand new Wilson baseball.

Your procedure should be written out in a step-by-step list on how the experiment will be completed. This list should be numbered. The steps for the first trial in each condition should be listed and following trials should just be mentioned with “repeat steps”. You should use transition words to guide the person along -- they should be able to fully recreate your experiment, based solely on the descriptive steps provided. Remember how I made those PB sandwiches? Yeah...be specific!

Important Info

Teacher Grading Rubric

Display Board Design

Judge Grading Rubric

Materials/ Procedure

Variables and Trials

Independent Variable - What the experimenter is changing or testing. Should be only one.

Dependent Variable - What is being measured. Can have more than one, as long as question is answered.

Confounding - We don’t want these!! This is anything that might make your results unreliable. A thorough, detailed procedure helps a lot. Constants - Conditions of the experiment that remain the same throughout. You need to know these for your presentation.

Experiments need more than 2 trials for each condition tested. The amount of trials should be an odd number. The more the better. Control trials always a plus!

Variables ARE NOT trials. For example, if a student tested three different soil types to measure the effect of plant growth by each (e.g., compost, manure, dirt), by planting a seed in each of the three pots, that is only ONE trial. Doing that two more times would create the 3-trial experiment. Therefore, this experiment would need 9 pots in order to test three different trials.

Should be quantitative if at all possible, meaning numbers can be used to show results - not just observations written out as descriptions.

Observational data, while an interesting extra, is hard to make objective. Results need to be in a table and graphed out (we will work on this in class as well...so don't worry). Here is the link to the 'how to make a graph' video we watched in class. It was made by me, so it is all accurate and up to date! If you forgot how to make your graph, check here first!

Data/ Results

Conclusion

Your conclusion should state whether your hypothesis was proven or not. A disproven hypothesis does not mean it wasn’t a good project. This just means a future scientist now has a new experiment to work on!! In the conclusion, be sure to also state what went well and why and/or what did not work out as intended and why that might be.

Scientific Method Steps

Need an Idea?

(Click the links below)

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

-Neil Armstrong

Living on Mars:

Martian Outpost

Scientific Method Video

Project Timeline

Meet the Project:

In this project, students will be designing a Martian outpost for humans to colonize on. Students will be exploring a wide variety of different concepts including mass vs. weight vs. gravity; distances between planets; what it means to be sustainable; environmental hazards, and more! Groups will not just be learning about these different obstacles and challenges, but also be creating solutions to them!

In the end, students will present these solutions to our Space Expert. In these presentations, students will talk about the challenges early settlers might face and how to overcome those challenges. Again, they will not be teaching someone about mars, they will be providing solutions.

Meet the Problem Video

What we know about Space/Mars: What we need to know:

Our Problem Statement:

How can we as scientists create a Martian outpost in such a way that we consider: