Outline for your project
Some of the best places to go for a complete outline of a science project. Spend some time exploring these sites, as they contain a lot of different resources that will help you get organized.
7 Steps To A Successful Project -- Science Fair Projects -- Conservation International
Follow these 7 steps to complete a science project, from devising a research question to creating the presentation. You may not be doing a project in biodiversity, but the outline will be useful no matter what kind of topic you’ve chosen.
Discoveryschool.com's Science Fair Central
Plenty of help for students, teachers, and parents: the "Soup to Nuts Handbook," project ideas, and lists of books and websites you can use to research your topic.
Neuroscience for Kids
This site describes each part of a successful project and includes links to other Science Fair help sites.
Science Buddies
Very detailed help on how to do research, experiment, analyze data, reach conclusions, create your display, and survive the judging. Many of these topics include a self-quiz that helps you fix the weak spots in your project before the judges see it.
Science Fair Projects page by Peter Macinnis
Offers a detailed step-by-step guide to doing a science fair project, a long with many project ideas and Resources to help with science fairs and projects.
Develop Your Research Question
This section will help you turn your questions into scientific hypotheses. Remember! A good science fair question is one that you can think of a way to answer.
Cyberbee: Science Fair Project
Read through and fill out this worksheet to make your topic more specific and to learn how to tell your variables from your results.
Science Buddies: Background Research
Learn how to do your background research using a sample project to illustrate the process. You’ll learn where to go to find information and what your research is supposed to tell you. The "Question Words Table" will help turn your research into a testable question.
What Makes a Good Science Fair Project? - California State Science Fair
Explains the difference between a good hypothesis and a poor one, as well as why "getting the right answer is NOT the purpose of a Science Fair project." A list of common mistakes is found at the end.
Wiley: Developing a Science Fair Project
Look at the section on "tinkering research" to see why you start researching before your project idea is fully formed. Also see the five questions which need "Yes" answers before your experimental project is ready to go.
Conduct an Experiment
This section will help keep you on track, and if you’re doing something else, some of the sites below will help you with keeping a journal and organizing your information.
Chemistry.About.com: How to Do a Science Fair Project
Useful tips (with explanations) for conducting your experiment, such as write down everything, don’t discard data, and repeat your experiment.
Collect Your Data - Step 4 - 7 Steps to a Successful Project
Even if you’re not investigating biodiversity, check out what they say here about keeping a journal and making up data sheets. They’re essential to almost any kind of project that involves investigation.
Science Buddies: Variable & Hypothesis
Defines the essential features of a scientific experiment: independent, dependent, and controlled variables, and how to create a hypothesis.
ScI-Journal: Hints and Tips
A series of webpages showing you how to plan your project, obtain data, analyze your results, and present your results.
