Karina
What topic would be better for my science fair project?
Last year i discovered this site and asked this same question. Today i can say that my project won first place in Cognitive Sciences, and after doing an International Science fair i got accepted for another one, now I'm representing Puerto Rico in Brazil this year for it. After receiving much advice here and help I've decided to ask again, what topic should i do this year? Last year my topic was:
How much do high school students depend on AI for English redaction assignments? Can teachers determine when schoolwork is AI generated?
This years topic im not sure what to do but i have some ideas and ill explain the backstory on why its an idea.
1. Replicating liver enzymes and certain conditions to see and better understand what makes them go up
- My partner came up with this because her mom has an autoimmune disease that has something to do with the liver.
2. Developing a light sensor that turns on a small light to prevent elderly trips and falls in dimly lit places.
- As we all know elderly people sometimes have difficulty seeing in the dark, sometimes they struggle finding the switch to turn on the light. Its hard to know how many elderly people have gotten injured because of this. Last week my grandma was telling me about the night before when she tripped and fell on her way to the bathroom because she couldn't find the light or her phone, because of this she sprained her wrist. After that conversation i came up with the idea of developing a light sensor to prevent these injures.
3. This third one im not sure about but its something about epilepsy.
- Investigating the effectiveness of different seizure management techniques
- Exploring the impact of epilepsy on learning and memory
- Examine the effects of specific environmental factors on seizure frequency
-- The idea to make it about epilepsy was that last year very suddenly my brother got diagnosed with it and in july we had his first seizure. It has impacted us as a family greatly and i thought of doing something to teach people more about it.
3 answers
Atul Bhankharia
Atul’s Answer
I understand making my own decisions i just wanted an opinion on what professionals thought about. I like all of the topics just wanted to see what people would be more interested in. Thank you!!
Karina
Karin P.
Karin’s Answer
Congratulations on last year's successful project and presentations! Good work! I love your project ideas, and I especially like that you come up with your own ideas to solve problems from your own daily experiences.
For this year, I like your options 1 and 3. If you still plan to become a vet, something bio/medical would just give you more to talk about and tie it in with your passion for veterinary medicine.
Now, biomed projects tend to be more difficult to pull off because you might need instrumentation and facilities plus there are ethical guidelines. I would recommend that you get in touch with the Medical School and/or the Biology and Chemistry departments and talk to people who do research. At least in the US, the top students e.g. at Intel Science Fair usually have access to university labs and a mentor. Maybe your Science Fair organization can help put you in contact with appropriate people.
For project 1, what would the project actually look like? Wouldn't you need to work with cell cultures? That's not something you can do in your mom's kitchen and probably more than what you can do at school.
Project 2 doesn't have enough depth. Motion sensors for lights do exist. You can buy the components to put it together fairly easily. So, unless you can significantly expand on the basics, I don't think that would fly.
For project 3, you need to be careful. You can't just expose people with epilepsy to different triggers because that would be unethical. Seizure management could be done with a survey, but there are so many variables that you don't control. So, this needs some thinking about clever study design.
Again, I would recommend finding a mentor who can assist with the ethical clearance and with use of facilities.
I hope this helps! All the best to you! You got this!
KP
Yes!! i agree with you. For the first project i am not sure how it would work because its not entirely my idea and my partner hasn’t told me an exact plan on what she is thinking of doing. I felt like if she wanted to do something like that she should have a clear plan and she hasn’t told me. My mom has friends that have laboratories and some work at hospitals so i thought about asking for their help. For the third project i’ve done research and im not sure what topic sounds better for it but if i wanted to do the device and app it would require coding which in my opinion is a little hard, but i believe anything is possible and it also exists already so i don't know if it would be a good idea to do. Which topic sounds better among the 3 i wrote?
Karina
I think project 1 would be really cool. It's ok, not to know all the details yet. There is an idea, you need to do some reading and discuss with some people, and flesh out what's possible. My second would be project 3.
Karin P.
Blaine Fredrickson
Blaine’s Answer
First, congratulations on your win, and the opportunity to represent your country at the next level.
I've considered your three ideas.
While I'm not excited about any of them, a combination of all 3 struck me as a possibility. Please consider this:
A web site that focuses on various disabilities and difficulties in life, offering education, practical advice, and links to other sites that offer more information.
Consider your audience to be school children. When they meet someone with a disability or ageing issue, or have a family member with such, they need education to help them understand the disability, how to act in a socially responsible and respectful way, what they can do to help, etc.
That's my suggestion to you, and since it's built on your ideas, you can truly take credit for it.
- Blaine
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