A: First and probably most important is to be encouraging to your child! Sit down and listen to the ideas that he/she has and then discuss the ideas with them. If your child does not have any ideas for a project, please ask if they have been to the school and public library. Do not be surprized if they say " Yes" to this question. They may have looked for "ready-made" projects and found none to their liking. An interest or idea has to be worked into a topic. Please do not panic, the science teachers are ready to assist students but would like to see parental guidance and involvement in the student projects prior to their renewed consultation for ideas. Some stores sell kits for science projects; please discourage the purchase and use of these kits.
Before a topic is finalized, the student needs to research the proposed topic. They need to learn what has already been found, what books are available on the subject, and if they believe that the topic is reasonable for their level of education. When the student is researching, he/she should start asking some questions like: " What has not been solved?" ; " What would be the effect of XXX on this?"; and " Is this the only way to do this?". These questions should be written as they are the start of the project's topic. The list of questions needs to be looked at and reduced to just one question that the student would like to study. The student then needs to look at the researched information and predict a possible answer to the selected study question. This proposed answer is the project hypothesis. At this point, you should be asked for permission to continue. Before you give permission, ask your child how they are going to experiment on this topic. This will give you an idea of possible costs and any unexpected requirements.
The planning of the experimental activity, also known as the procedure, is very important. The procedure must be a detailed step by step set of actions or activities to be performed during the experiment. Your child must be careful in designing the procedure because they must not change more than one variable in the experiment. An example of changing more than one variable is: if testing fertilizers on tomatoes you have different pots, different soils, and different amounts of water. This experiment would be called an uncontrolled experiment because we would not know what variable might have caused a change in the tomatoes. Was it the pots? the soil? the water? or a combination of all?
After all of the above has been done, the student must complete the research plan form. This form requires that the student write out their statement of problem, the hypothesis, the detailed procedure, and a complete listing of a minimum of three scientific references related to the project. This plan and any other approval forms will then need to be approved by you, the teacher, and the review committee. After this, the student needs to follow the procedural steps and start the experiment.
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A: There is no limit on the amount of experimentation that can be done. However, every student is informed that a valid experiment must be controlled and repeatable. Students are given the example that if they wish to see the effect of red light on plants, then they must have the following: at least 3 (hopefully 6) identical plants, identical pots, potting soil, light sources, measuring devices, and a standard source of water. The experiment would consist of 1-2 plants in the dark, 1-2 plants in red light, and1-2 plants in white light. The better experiment has more test subjects. The more test subjects improves the validity of the results. If you only test one plant for each of the above experiment sections and the plant(s) are diseased, the experiment could end quickly and with inaccurate results. The length of an experiment is included in the procedure and is usually 2-4 weeks. After an experiment is completed, some students will repeat or continue the experiment for more information. Some students will setup two or three experiments to run at the same time. Students also need to obtain as much data as possible. Data is any information that the student can observe, measure, and then record. It is used to determine if the hypothesis is valid or invalid.