Do Your Project

Before you do your project, be sure to find your topic and sign up for the science fair! Now it's time to roll up your sleeves and do some science! The best way to do your science project is to follow these 8 steps — which are the 8 sections of your display board.

1. Project Title

The title goes on the header board that is clipped to your display board. The title should be a short interesting description of your project, followed by your scientific question. For example:

Going the Distance:

How does the number of paper clips on the nose of a paper airplane affect the distance it can fly?

2. Your Name, Grade, and Teacher's name

Should go directly under your Project Title.

3. Hypothesis

The hypothesis is an educated guess. It is what you think the answer to your question might be. You will run experiments to test if your hypothesis is correct or not. A good hypothesis makes it easy to decide what experiments you should do.

For the science fair, your hypothesis must contain the words IF and THEN.

Example Hypothesis:

If I place five paper clips on the nose of a paper airplane, then the plane will fly farther than with none, one, or three paper clips on the plane's nose.

In this example, the hypothesis gives the reader a clear idea of what you think the answer is (5 paper clips is the best number for long distance flying) and how you plan to test that (by changing the number of paper clips in your experiments).

4. Procedure

The procedure is a detailed description of the steps of your experiment. It is the recipe you will follow to do your experiments. You should write your procedure before you start your experiment so you know clearly what you are changing (the independent variable), what you are keeping the same (all other conditions), and what you are measuring (the dependent variable). To write out your procedure, imagine doing the experiment, step by step. This helps you to be organized before beginning your experiment.

List each of the steps in your experiment, in order, including recording the data collected during your tests or trials.

Example Procedure:

1. Construct identical planes to use in the experiment.
2. For each trial, select an airplane. It should have no paperclips attached.
3. Throw the airplane from the starting line.
4. Measure and record the distance the airplane flew.
5. Add one paperclip and repeat steps 3 and 4 until you've done a test with 5 paperclips. This completes one trial.
6. Go back to step 2 and do another trial with a different airplane. Repeat until you've done 3 trials.
7. Average the distance and record it with the rest of your results.

Tip: A good procedure repeats the experiment several times to make sure the results aren't an accident. Each repetition of the experiment is called a "trial." See steps 6 and 7 in the example above.

When you have completed your experiments, you can update your procedure to state what you actually did. Remember to include additional steps you might have discovered that you needed to complete your experiment. This final version will be displayed on your project board at the Science Fair.

5. Materials

Using your Procedure for reference, list all of the materials you will need to do your experiments.

Example Materials:

- 3-4 identical paper airplanes made from 8-1/2 x 11" printer paper
- paperclips, all the same kind
- measuring tape
- space to test the airplane's flying ability, with a clear starting line

6. Data

PART 1: Preparing For Your Experiment

Before you start your experiment, you may want to create a table to fill in as you do your experiment -- this will make collecting your data much easier. Organize it in columns and rows with clear headings (see the headings in bold in the example below). One set of headings will show the changes in the independent variable. The other set of headings will list which trial is being recorded.

PART 2: Doing the Experiment / Collecting the Data

During the experiment, follow the steps you laid out in your Procedure and fill in the results (the dependent variable) in your table.

Tip: DON'T FORGET TO TAKE PICTURES while doing the experiment, if you want to include them in your display!

PART 3: After the Experiment -- Calculating Results and Displaying Your Data

After the experiment, you can do any calculations that may be necessary, such as finding the average of your trials.

You can then present your final results as a table or graph, or both.

Your table or graph should clearly show the results from your experiments – how the dependent variable (your measurement) changed as your adjusted your independent variable (what you tested).

Example Data (table):

Flight Results

Example Graph:

7. Results

Use words to discuss the results of your experiment. The results should clearly state what you measured with your experiment. You don't need to restate every number from your table or graph. Instead, try to communicate the most important numbers, trends, or comparisons in your data.

Example Results:

The more paper clips we used, the farther the plane flew. With 5 paper clips, the plane flew the longest average distance of 9.3 meters. With 0 and 1 paper clips, the plane flew the shortest average distance of 0.3 meters.

8. Conclusions

The conclusion section is a chance to think about and discuss your results. You can write about whatever you found interesting from your project. Here are some things you could talk about in your conclusions:

Was your hypothesis correct? If not, how were your results different and why?

What did you find most interesting or surprising in your results?

Did your results raise any additional questions? Are there follow-up experiments that would be interesting to do, based on the results from this experiment?

This is an important part of your experiment, and a great chance to think creatively about what you tested!

Tip: Don't worry if your your hypothesis was not correct! You can always learn something from your results. What did you learn from your science project? The Conclusion section is where you get to think about WHY you got the results you did, and what you think that means -- regardless of whether it confirmed your hypothesis.

Example Conclusions:

The hypothesis was confirmed that 5 paper clips will make the plane fly farther.

There were a few surprises in the experiment. I was surprised that one paper clip didn't have any impact on the average distance, versus no paper clips. I was also surprised that trial #3 for 3 paper clips was so much shorter than the other two trials, but that may just have been an accident where I threw it differently.

I think there are some follow-up experiments that would be interesting to do. First, I would try the same experiment with 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 paper clips to see if the plane gets too heavy at some point and starts flying shorter distances as I add more paper clips. Second, I would try attaching paper clips to different parts of the airplane (like front, middle, and back) and see how that affects the results. Third, I would try this experiment with different-shaped planes to see if the best number of paper clips changes based on the type of paper airplane.

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