Get Ready for a Winning Science Project
Read Get Ready for a Winning Science Project Online
Authors: Sandra Buczynski
A NOTE TO PARENTS AND TEACHERS: Please remind your children how to stay safe online before they do the activities in this book.
A NOTE TO KIDS: Always remember your safety comes first!
Published in the United States of America
by Cherry Lake Publishing
Ann Arbor, Michigan
www.cherrylakepublishing.com
Content Adviser: Gail Dickinson, PhD,
Associate Professor, Old Dominion University,
Norfolk, Virginia
Book design and illustration: The Design Lab
Photo credits: Page 1, ©Ariel Skelley/Glow Images; page 6, ©Monkey Business Images/
Dreamstime.com
; page 10, ©
iStockphoto.com
/Bart Coenders; page 13, ©Rmarmion/Dreamstime.com; page 17, ©
iStockphoto.com/kali9
; page 19, ©Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock, Inc.; page 23, ©Sam Bloomberg-Rissman/Glow Images
Copyright ©2012 by Cherry Lake Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Buczynski, Sandra C.
Super smart information strategies: get ready for a winning science project/by Sandy Buczynski.
     p. cm.â(Information explorer)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-61080-124-9 (lib. bdg.)
ISBN-13: 978-1-61080-270-3 (pbk.)
  1. Communication in scienceâJuvenile literature. 2. Science ProjectsâJuvenile literature. I. Title.
Q175.2.B83 2012
507.8âdc22Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 2011002442
Cherry Lake Publishing would like to acknowledge
the work of The Partnership for 21st Century Skills.
Please visit
www.21stcenturyskills.org
for more information.
Printed in the United States of America
Corporate Graphics Inc.
July 2011
CLFA09
Table of Contents
Chapter One
That's a Good Idea!
Chapter Three
What Is Your Problem?
Chapter Four
Start Your Search Engine!
Chapter Five
Communicate Your Results
Â
That's a Good Idea!
Have you ever wondered how something works?
Are you curious? Are you a careful observer? Do you enjoy solving problems? If so, doing a science project may be just the activity for you!
The goal of a science project is to solve a problem. A science project is an
experiment
you do or an
invention
you create to answer a question that you have.
EXPERIMENT
â¢Â   hands-on activity in the laboratory
â¢Â   scientific observations of nature
â¢Â   surveys or questionnaires about issues
â¢Â   exploration of existing
databases
INVENTION
â¢Â   designing and building new devices that can help get certain tasks done
â¢Â   creating engineering projects
â¢Â   testing and improving the performance of existing products
â¢Â   building models to explain what is happening
Experimenters find out things for themselves. Inventors design and make things that will solve problems. Inventors like to think outside the box! Both types of scientists like to
collaborate
, or work with other scientists who are interested in the same topics.
Where do you find an idea for a science project? How do you find the information you need to understand your topic? Curiosity is the key ingredient! Here are some tips to get you started.
First you need to choose a particular science category to study. This will help you pick the main idea for your project. Decide if you want to experiment with food, plants, chemicals, or something else.
If you are working with a group, make sure everyone helps find a project topic.
CATEGORIES OF SCIENCE
Take a look at these science subject areas and choose one that interests you.
BIOLOGY: anything relating to life, including cells and DNA
ZOOLOGY: all about animals in the zoo and in the wild, how they behave and grow.
BOTANY: how plants grow, gardening, seeds
MICROBIOLOGY: very tiny organisms such as bacteria, algae, or viruses
CHEMISTRY: molecules, acids and bases, solutions and mixtures, chemical reactions
EARTH SCIENCE: anything in our environment: rocks, ocean, weather, volcanoes
ASTRONOMY: stars, planets, the night sky, galaxies, comets, meteors
ENTOMOLOGY: every type of insect, from ants to zebra butterflies
PHYSICS: study of matter and energy
ENGINEERING: designing and making structures and machines
FOOD SCIENCE: healthy eating, burning calories, testing foods, food spoilage
ECOLOGY: food webs, plant and animal communities
Now you need to research what is already known about your topic. Time to be a detectiveâlibrary and Internet to the rescue!
Reading about what other scientists and students are studying is a good place to find project ideas.
â¢Â   Read science news in magazines (
National Geographic World, Science News, Kids Discover, Odyssey, Ask, Muse, Dig, and many more
).
â¢Â   Read the section of the newspaper that reports science news.
â¢Â   Look on the Internet for projects that have been done in the past.
â¢Â   California State Science Fair
www.usc.edu/CSSF/
â¢Â   Science Hound: All Science Fair Projects
www.all-science-fair-projects.com/
â¢Â   Watch TV shows with science themes (
Bill Nye, The Science Guy; MythBusters; DragonflyTV; NOVA
).