Display Board Help

Here are some helpful hints about how to put together a science fair display board.

Several of these hints and tips come from this PowerPoint: Display Board Help Just click on the link and it should direct you to a helpful PowerPoint.

• The display board should be read like a newspaper from top to bottom and left to right.
• Include all the necessary parts for the science fair project including, title, abstract, purpose, hypothesis, variables, research paper (may also go on the table in front of the board), materials, procedures, data tables, graphs, results, conclusion, and possibly acknowledgements.  The different parts are generally put in the order of the project from start to finish. The abstract may go in the beginning or the end. Everything should be typed.
• Use only a few main colors that compliment each other and are easy to read and stand out. If it doesn't read well on the computer, it won't read well on the board. A few accent colors can also be added, but sometimes simple looks best.
• Include pictures of your experiment. The saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words," holds very true for the display board. 
• Create everything for the display board, lay it all out on the board and make sure it is how you want it, and then glue everything down.

Here is an animated guide to the display board with a link to some great do's and dont's.
Science Fair Central

Examples:

Great color scheme! Even the graphs use the same three colors.

Another nice board with easy to read sections and great pictures.

Writing an Abstract

An abstract is a summary of the whole science fair project and should be written towards the end. The abstract should include a sentence or two from each phase of the project. The abstract does not need to be very long, maybe a half a page to three quarters of a page of a decent sized font.

Pretend someone asked a student, "What was your science fair project about?" The student will probably include some words on their purpose or question, a few words on their background information, a few words on their hypothesis and variables, some words on how they did their experiment, some words on their results, and a few words about their conclusion.  These are all the parts in the correct order of an abstract. One helpful hint if a student is having trouble writing an abstract is to ask them this very question and encourage them to verbalize their answer before writing it.

Here is an abstract question stem from Williamsclass.com Science Fair Guide: "Writing the Abstract"

Fill in the following lines to create a successful Abstract:

The purpose of my science fair project was ________________________

________________________________________________________

An interesting piece of background knowledge is ___________________

___________________________________________________________

My hypothesis for this project was______________________________

__________________________________________________________

The constants and control in my experiment were____________________

___________________________________________________________

 The variables in my experiment was _____________________________

___________________________________________________________

The conducted my experiment by ________________________________

____________________________________________________________

The results of this experiment were (just the most important) ___________

____________________________________________________________

The results show that my hypothesis was wrong or right because 

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

If I were going to do this experiment again in the future or expand on this experiment I would

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

Sample Abstract:

Abstract

Rocketry has been around for a long time. Scientists, people who build model rockets and the military all use different kinds of rockets. Studying rockets is important because it helps us to learn about outer space. This project is using different amounts of water and air to make rockets fly. My hypothesis was that more water will make the rocket fly the longest. The independent variable was the different amounts of water and the dependent was the time in seconds that the rocket flew. I used a two liter bottle and a bottle launcher. I launched the bottle filled 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, and the whole two liter bottle with water. The longest flight was the 1/3 filled bottle. It went 10.5 seconds. The whole bottle went 1.5 seconds and this was the shortest flight. The rocket barely got off the launcher. My hypothesis was incorrect. The least amount of water flew the longest. This happened because there was more air and less mass to get off the ground. The most amount of water had too much mass and too little air to fly.

Writing a Conclusion

The conclusion is a very important part of the science fair project. The conclusion wraps up the whole project by revisiting the hypothesis, explaining the results and most importantly shows the student's thinking.

Here are some steps or important parts to consider when writing the conclusion:

• Explain if the hypothesis was right or wrong and most importantly why. I always tell students that there should be a "because" in their conclusion.
• My hypothesis was that the organic fertilizer would cause the tallest growth in sunflower plants. My hypothesis was wrong because the Grow Fast fertilizer actually caused the plant to grow the tallest.

• Include results that support your conclusion.
• My hypothesis was that the organic fertilizer would cause the tallest growth. My hypothesis was wrong because the Grow Fast fertilizer actually caused the plant to grow the tallest. The Fast Grow fast plant grew 25 inches and the organic plant only grew 15 inches.

• Include reasons why the experiment turned out the way that it did. These reasons show a student's level of understanding about the project. These can also be educated guesses as to what happened based on what the student has learned throughout the project.
• My hypothesis was that the organic fertilizer would cause the tallest growth. My hypothesis was wrong because the Grow Fast fertilizer actually caused the plant to grow the tallest. The Fast Grow plant grew 25 inches and the organic plant only grew 15 inches. This may have happened because the Grow Fast fertilizer had more nitrogen in it. Nitrogen is very important in helping plants grow
• (May or may not be right, but shows the student is trying to make sense of their results by applying what they learned, especially during the research phase. When students think critically about their results, it can lead to some great "aha" moments.)

• The conclusion may include more questions that the students may have thought as they conducted the experiment and should include anything that they might have done differently. Again more examples of critical thinking.
• My hypothesis was that the organic fertilizer would cause the tallest growth. My hypothesis was wrong because the Grow Fast fertilizer actually caused the plant to grow the tallest. The Fast Grow plant grew 25 inches and the organic plant only grew 15 inches.This may have happened because the Grow Fast fertilizer had more nitrogen in it. Nitrogen is very important in helping plants grow Sunflower plants grow pretty quickly. I  wonder if the different fertilizers would have the same effect on slower growing plants. I also wonder about the effects of the fertilizers on the quality of the plants over a long period of time. if I were to complete this experiment again I would experiment over a longer period of time and not only focus on growth, but also quality. I would also experiment with s type of flower and a type of fern.

• In the conclusion, students can also connect to the real world and discuss why the experiment is important for others. The students can also discuss the impact that their conclusion can have on science, people and the real world. This is often referred to as real world implications. 
• My hypothesis was that the organic fertilizer would cause the tallest growth. My hypothesis was wrong because the Grow Fast fertilizer actually caused the plant to grow the tallest. The Fast Grow plant grew 25 inches and the organic plant only grew 15 inches.This may have happened because the Grow Fast fertilizer had more nitrogen in it. Nitrogen is very important in helping plants grow. Sunflower plants grow pretty quickly. I  wonder if the different fertilizers would have the same effect on slower growing plants. I also wonder about the effects of the fertilizers on the quality of the plants over a long period of time. if I were to complete this experiment again I would experiment over a longer period of time and not only focus on growth, but also quality. I would also experiment with s type of flower and a type of fern. My experiment shows that the organic fertilizer did not work as well. Anything organic has become popular in recent years. Organic items will not be as popular if they do not work as well. If organic products are going to be the wave of the future, then these types of products need to work as well a what is already available. 

Writing a Summary of Results

A summary of results is just like it sounds. It is a summary or review of the data or results in the experiment. The summary does not necessarily have to include every single piece of data, especially if there are many data entries, but should include the most important or relevant to the experiment. The high and low, the average, and the most consistent results are some examples of results that could be included in the summary of results paragraph. It is important to note that there is no explanation in the summary as that is saved for the conclusion.

Here is one example:

Results

The bottle filled one-third amount of water had 90 pumps of air. The bottle flew for 10.5 seconds. It went the highest and the longest. The bottle filled with one-half amount of water had 80 pumps of air and it flew for 5.4 seconds. This bottle went straight up and did two flips. The bottle filled with two-thirds amount of water had 72 pumps of air and flew for 4.3 seconds.  This bottle flew to the left. The bottle filled with three-fourths amount of water had 50 pumps of air and flew for 3.5 seconds. The bottle that was full of water had 18 pumps of air and flew for 1.5 seconds. It barely got off the ground.

Here is another explanation from Williamsclass.com Science Fair Guide http://www.williamsclass.com/ScienceFair/ScienceFairResults.htm

Your results should follow these guidelines:

1. Include what you wanted to accomplish and prove during your experiment.
2. Describe and report what you discovered. Be sure to include any data that might have been collected. It is important to show this data even if it did not support your hypothesis. The process of completing the experiment with true data is what is important.
3. The function of the Results section is to objectively present your key results, without interpretation.

Fill in the blanks below to create a quality Results page.

The original purpose of this experiment was to _____________________

The results of the experiment were ____________________________

Example From: http://www.murrieta.k12.ca.us/cms/lib5/CA01000508/Centricity/Domain/843/Example-Balloon_Write-up.doc 

The balloons with one-candle power had flight times of 14.2 seconds, 15.1 seconds, 14.8 seconds, and 15.1 seconds for an average of 14.8 seconds. The balloons with two-candle power had flight times of 12.6, 13.2, 13.0, and 13.2 seconds, for an average of 13.0 seconds. The three-candled balloons had times of 11.2, 10.4, 10.2, and 9. 8 seconds for an average time of 10.4 seconds. Therefore the number of candles determined the speed at which the balloon rose: three candles were quickest, two candles second, and the single candle balloon the slowest.

Creating Data Tables on the Computer

There are several different ways to create data tables in a word program like Microsoft Word and in a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel.

Here is a tutorial for inserting a table into Microsoft Word 2010.





Here is part two which provide even more helpful hints. These may not just help with the science fair, but also with navigating through Microsoft Word in general.






Another way to create a data table is to use a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel. Excel may seem a bit more challenging at first, but offers a wider variety of tools to use. It is also much easier  to create graphs out of Excel. My recommendation is to use Excel to create data tables. Here is a link to an Excel tutorial that provides some basic descriptions for Excel.

Here is a quick tutorial on some of the functions and commands of Excel.



That video comes from this website which has many lessons on Excel and every lesson includes a video. To find the other lessons, just click on the lessons button and scroll to a lesson that you would like to view.

These are all helpful and there are many more tutorials, lessons, and videos on the Internet that can help students and parents learn to use these programs, but one of the best teachers is practice and experience. One of the best ways to learn is to experiment  with the program and try different things, you'll be amazed at what you learn!

Working with Data

Here is a quick how to on working with data for a science fair experiment or any project or experiment that involves gathering a lot of data.

The benefits on working with data is that it helps to provide a better picture of what happened during the experiment. Another benefit is that it can make creating data tables and graphs easier.

There are many ways to work with data, but here are the four most common and their definitions. Remember, putting the numbers in order from least to greatest is important to do before working with the data.

 

Mode – The number that appears the most

Range – The difference between the largest number and the smallest number.

Median – The number in the middle of the data set. Remember you need to have an equal amount on each side of the median.

Mean – The average, add up all the numbers and divide by the total number of items. This is probably the most frequently used in working with data.

Here is an interactive that is helpful in reviewing these concepts.

Creating Graphs and Charts

There are several different ways to create computer generated graphs and charts. One way is to use Excel especially if a data table has already been created. This way will be explained in greater detail later on in the post. Another way, especially if the data table was created in Word, is to use a graphing program on the Internet. One of those programs is called Create a Graph. This website allows students to input data into a set format and will create a graph based on the data. There is also a very helpful Create a Graph tutorial that explains all the features of graphing.

Here is a graph that was completed in just a few minutes on Create a Graph.

The other way, as previously mentioned, is to graph using Excel. Here is one video on the basics of creating a bar graph in Excel.





Here is another video on Excel that takes a slightly different approach.





There are also many tutorials online on how to create graphs or charts in Excel. Here are two different examples:

Click here or click here

Remember one of the best ways to learn a software program is to practice and experiment with it.