When you go to your first science fair, there
are a few projects that you are sure to see every time that you go. Without a
doubt, someone will make the typical volcano out of baking soda and vinegar.
Did I say one? I mean that there will be at least seven volcanoes. Count them.
Seriously. You might also stumble across a couple of other typical favorites
like the shiny penny, where you use different liquids to clean a penny, the
rubber egg, which is basically just a hard-boiled egg, or the oil and water bottle,
which shows that oil and water have different densities and do not mix. When
you get to high school, you can’t just fall back on one of these old classics,
so you have to find a way to step up your game on science projects and show
that you are thinking on a higher level than when you were in elementary
school.
Ultimately, the goal in science projects once
you get to high school is to test your ability to practically apply the
scientific method to design an experiment and then draw conclusions from the
results of that experiment. You learn this concept sometime in middle school or
high school and it is drilled home once you get to ninth grade. At this point,
you are not tested so much for your ability to design or invent some experiment
that changes the world. That is obviously encouraged, but they do not expect
every student in high school to be the next Albert Einstein. They just want you
to show that you are able to think critically. That comes in your ability to
take something that they have not assigned to you and do the same process that
you have already done on things that were assigned to you. You really just need
to look in the notebook where you write all of your science labs and use that
as inspiration. Use that template to design your experiment.
The first step in the scientific method is
coming up with a hypothesis, which is your theory for what the experiment will
produce. You will use this to design your experiment. Using logic, you derive a
prediction of the result and then design an unbiased test to see if your
conclusion is correct. Your hypothesis is going to answer a certain question,
so you need to design the circumstances such that you are getting a true answer
to that question. You can’t just make an experiment that proves your hypothesis.
Maybe you design an experiment and your
hypothesis is wrong. This is actually good news. This is something that graders
actually want to see. When you show that you came up with an idea, tested it,
found out that it was wrong, and accepted that result, it shows that you have
good decision-making skills and critical thinking skills. Sometimes, the
smartest people are not the ones that know all of the answers, but know when
they are wrong and how to find a way to be right.
