We are two weeks into the planning of our science fair projects. By the end of this week, the following questions should be answered:

1. The first thing you need to do is figure out what we are going to test. That does not mean that you need a title, we can get that at the end. It does mean that you need to write a question that you plan to investigate.

2. Now that you have an initial question, we need to set limits to what we plan to investigate. Its expected that science projects are fair, so need identify the variables.

Independent variable

Dependent variable

3. We now have a better understanding of the variables that we plan to test and measure, rephrase your initial question in a testable form.

4. A big part of being a scientist is using what you already know about your subject to predict what you think will happen in your project and to justify scientifically why you think so. State a hypothesis based on research, background information or an observed pattern of events. 

5. Now its time to design how you are going to test your experiment.

A. List the materials needs for this experiment

B. Identify the variables that need to be controlled for this experiment to be fair

C. Design the methods to test your hypothesis