Science Fair Projects: Kids think they should be fun. Teachers think they should be educational. Parents just want them to be quick and easy. Since students, teachers, and parents are all involved in the science fair preparation process, more often than not, science projects have to be all of the above!
As a result, finding the perfect science fair project can be difficult. Here are five steps to finding a project that makes everyone happy.
1. Know what kind of science project is required. There are five types of projects, and many students’ idea has been rejected on a scientific technicality. Make sure you know if the science teacher requires an experimental (investigative) project, a demonstration of a scientific principle, a report on a science topic, a collection of items, or a scientific model. Most science fairs require an experiment, which has a hypothesis, tests the hypothesis following the scientific method, and comes to a conclusion.
2. Find out what interests the student. What does your son do in his spare time? He rides a horse, is she a footballer? Is music a passion or do you have a budding engineer on your hands? If a student is already interested in a topic, learning more about it will come naturally.
3. Determine the budget of time and money. If your science fair is next week, you should be looking for a quick and easy science project that can be done without ordering supplies from Outer Botswana. If you can’t afford specialty chemicals or scientific equipment, then you’ll need to focus on projects that can use materials that are readily available in your home.
4. Use all available resources to search for scientific projects. Head to the library and check out the books on science projects. You can also use the Internet. Go to your search engine and type in “vitamin C science project” or “isolation science experiment.” Note, however, that many books and websites have demo projects rather than experiments. So again, be careful to find the right type of project.
5. Make a list of possible projects and work together to choose the best one!