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Book Chapter
Generating Ideas for Projects: Ideas All Around You
Some of the best science fair projects can be found right in the world around you. These projects are found when you start looking at cooking, gardeni...
Book Chapter
Science fair projects are about real problems that you choose to explore. The problems are challenging and fun. The best way to find out what science ...
Book Chapter
The wing of a bat, the bone in your leg, the stem of a plant—all have elegant, elaborate structures. Scientists would like to understand how and why...
Book Chapter
Science Without Numbers: Searching for Patterns
Searching for patterns is often the very beginning of sense making. We do it all the time. Scientists try to find patterns in their observations, then...
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The Numbers Game: Designing Your Own Measures
Have you ever wondered how people managed before the ruler and the clock were invented? Today, scientists use the metric system of measurement—one b...
Book Chapter
Experiment Design: Preparing Experimental Designs
This chapter focuses on turning cooking into a science. A cookie recipe is shared with students along with a list of questions to consider. Students...
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Sources of Error: Sampling: An Introduction
Sampling is a technical matter—it has to be planned carefully. The accuracy and reliability of the results are calculated using statistics. For exam...
Book Chapter
Making Sense of Your Results: Interpreting Graphs
Graphs can tell a story and are like a silent interpreter. They give meaning to numbers and turn numbers into pictures, but words still need to be inp...
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Explanations: Deepening Your Understanding: Analogies and Models
This chapter highlights the project—“The Right Nail for the Right Job”—and extends the understanding of the behavior of wood and nails. Scient...
Book Chapter
Sharing Your Findings: Talking About Your Project
After finishing investigations or experiments, scientists frequently present their findings at a conference. If their presentations are well received,...
Book Chapter
Judging Projects: Making Judgments
Scientists often put themselves in other scientists’ shoes to make judgments by saying “if I had been doing that piece of research, what would I h...
Book Chapter
Generating Ideas for Projects: Ideas From the Scientific Literature
Scientists keep in touch with one another by writing about their experiments in journals. These are the original sources of information that spread qu...
Book Chapter
Plant Biomass (Photosynthesis)
The purpose of this activity is to help students understand the synthesis and source of plant biomass, as well as the process of photosynthesis. This ...
Book Chapter
This sample from, What Does an Animal Eat? offers insights into two special aspects of hungry animals: how their teeth and beaks offer clues about wha...
Book Chapter
The Science-Literacy Connection
There has been much talk about integrating science and literacy instruction in recent years. Why this focus, particularly in the elementary classroom?...