On December 3rd, the Intel Mini-Scientist exhibition will take place in the school. 4th, 5th and 6th classes will take part in the exhibition, presenting group projects. One of our Wednesday for Parents posts a couple of weeks ago dealt with choosing a good project for science fairs. This week, we’re going to concentrate on researching your topic.
Over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to model how to do a science fair project, using a sample question. If you follow along with the timeline, you should get your project finished in plenty of time!
Take, for example, the questions ‘Does playing music to plants make them grow faster?’ First, consider what you already know about plants and about music. Then ask yourself questions about what you’d like to know about plants and music! Maybe it’s about previous experiments, maybe it’s related to different types of music, maybe it’s related to different types of plants.
Your research should raise a few extra questions that you’d like to answer. You can find information on the internet and in books – be careful which websites you use though. Choose your information carefully.
Remember, too, that there is no point in copying and pasting all the information. It’s better to summarise it. Ask yourself what are the ten most important things to take from the information. Ask yourself how the information can help you to research your question and start thinking about how you’re going to solve your question!
By the end of this week, you should have your background research complete on your question and you should have an idea about how to test your question. If you get stuck, make sure to ask your teacher for help!
Next week, we’ll talk about setting up a fair test and recording your experiment through photos and diagrams.
Give us a progress report in the comments!
