Topic Research

Selecting a Topic

Obviously you want to get an A+ on your project, win awards at the science fair, and learn many new things about science. Some or all of these goals are possible, but you will have to spend a lot of time working on your project, so choose a topic that interests you. It is best to pick a topic and stick with it, but if you find after some work that your topic is not as interesting as you originally thought, stop and select another one. Since it takes time to develop a good project, however, it is unwise to repeatedly jump from one topic to another. You may, in fact, decide to stick with your original idea even if it is not as exciting as you had expected. You might just uncover some very interesting facts that you didn't know.

Remember that the main objective of a science project is to learn more about science. Your project doesn't have to be highly complex to be successful. Excellent projects can be developed that answer very basic and fundamental questions about events or situations encountered on a daily basis that relate to science. There are many easy ways of selecting a topic. The following are just a few of them.

Ask Questions about the World around You

You can turn everyday experiences into a project topic by asking inquiry questions (introductory problems for investigation about a topic). For example, you may have seen a potted plant sitting near a window looking healthy in the morning, but the same plant looking wilted in the afternoon. If you express this as an inquiry question—"What causes the stems of a plant to be stiff?"—you have a good question about plants. But could this be a project topic? Think about it! What is it in the plant that makes it stiff? Did the Sun have any effect on the plant's stiffness? By continuing to ask inquiry questions, you zero in on the topic of water movement through plants via xylem tubes (plant structures that transport water from the roots to other plant parts) as well as the cause of turgor pressure (internal pressure of plant cells due to the presence of water) in plants.

Keep your eyes and ears open, and start asking yourself more inquiry questions, such as "Do certain types of dyes fade faster than others?" "Could I test the fading of different kinds of dye on small pieces of cloth?" To know more about these things, you can research and design a whole science fair project about the topic of the durability of different kinds of dye. You will be pleasantly surprised at the number of possible project ideas that will come to mind when you begin to look around and use inquiry questions.

You and those around you each day make an amazing number of statements and ask many questions that could be used to develop science project topics. Be alert and listen for a statement like "She's a clone of her mother." This statement can become an inquiry question, such as "Why do children look like their parents?" or "Why do some children look more like their grandparents than their parents?" These questions could lead you to develop a project about heredity.

Choose a Topic from Your Experience

You may think that you don't have much experience with science topics, but remember that this doesn't have to be rocket science! For example, you have experienced foods changing temperature. You may remember that while you were eating a bowl of ice cream some of the ice cream melted and the melted ice cream tasted sweeter than the still-frozen ice cream. Ask yourself, "Was this because the melted ice cream was warmer?" With research information about receptor cells for taste, you could design a project to determine the effects of temperature on taste. The project problem might be, "How does temperature affect taste?" Propose your hypothesis and start designing your project experiment.

You can often get ideas for topics in science magazines, but don't expect magazines to include detailed instructions on how to perform experiments and design displays. What you can look for are facts that interest you and that lead you to ask inquiry questions. An article about the Barringer Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona, might bring to mind these inquiry questions: "Why don't all meteors cause craters?" "Are Earth's meteor craters like those on the Moon?" Wow! Impact craters is another great project topic you might discover in a science magazine.

Select a Topic from a Book on Science Fair Projects or Science Experiments

Science fair project books, such as this one, can provide you with many different topics to choose from as well as some inquiry questions that can lead to an interesting project. Even though science experiment books do not give you as much direction as science fair project books, many can provide you with exploratory "cookbook" experiments that tell you what to do, what the results should be, and why. But whether you use a science fair project book or a science experiment book, it will be up to you to pick a topic and develop it into a science fair project. The 55 project ideas described in this book can further sharpen your skills at expressing inquiry questions. A list of different project and experiment books can be found in Appendix 8.

Special Topics

Before beginning your project experiment, discuss your plans with your teacher. He or she will be familiar with the regulations that govern potentially dangerous experiments. These may include chemical and equipment usage, experimental techniques, experiments involving live animals, cell cultures, microorganisms, or animal tissues. For some experiments, an adult sponsor trained in the area of your topic will be required to supervise your project. Your safety, as well as the safety of any other people or animals, is the most important thing. In addition, if you have not adhered to the rules of the fair, you may not be allowed to enter your completed work. Before you begin you should have your project topic approved by your teacher. This prevents you from working on an unsafe project and from wasting time on a project that would be disqualified.