A science project is essentially a series of experiments that help you prove or disprove a theory that you have about a certain question that you or someone else may have asked you. This question that you are trying to answer is the crux of your science fair project.

This means that finding a good question to base your science fair project on is very important. So how do you get this all important question. There are two ways that you can come up with scientific questions – observational research and co-relational research.Observational research is also known as ethnography.

It essentially means observing behavior to see if what people say they will do is actually what they will do. Here we will come up with questions based on the difference between what is expected to happen in a certain situation and what will actually happen.A large variety of scientific experiments can be based on this concept of ethnography.

Pick an experiment that can be repeated often under a variety of conditions and you can form a pretty good hypothesis based on it. Here your question will seek to answer if the results to the experiment change with the change in the conditions under which it is performed. This will generate enough data for a full fledged science fair project.

Having a good display board is of paramount importance to any science fair project. We spoke of the visual aspect of the display board relating to images in the last blog post, here we speak of the text that you will put on the board.

Text can be both hand written or computer printed for the display board. All you need to ensure is that the size is legible from a distance of five to six feet and that the font you choose is not so fancy as to interfere with understanding the words printed out.

Besides the size and font you will also need to consider what all information you want to give out in the display board pertaining to your science fair project. Not all details need to be shared here. Consider leaving out a few things so that the judges can question you about these obvious omissions.

That way you will get a chance to impress them with your oratory skills and in depth knowledge of the subject you have picked for the science fair project. To explain the basic details of what the project is all about on the display board, but don’t flood it with all the theory that you have picked up.

There is no doubt that presentation makes a huge difference to your science fair project. If you manage to present the project in a good visual display the judges are that much more likely to take note of your work. Here are a few things that you can do to ensure that your display board does not jar the senses of the judges.

There are two elements that you need to place on the display board – images and text. The images will include pictures that you may have taken while the science project was in progress, graphs or charts depicting the findings of the project, graphics taken from the internet to explain the concepts being studied in the project and so on.

The key thing to remember is to keep the size of the images right. Do not blow them up into huge sizes hoping to fill up the area on the display board and don’t make them too tiny and too many to fit in the limited area available on the board. The image should be easily seen and all details that are pertinent to the experiment should be visible.

Try to leave some place between images on the display board to avoid giving an over crowded and cluttered look. Clutter does not come from an organized mind. So ensure that your organization skills are visible on the display board you put up for your science fair project.

So far we have covered lemon juice, baking soda, and milk as potential sources of invisible ink from the kitchen shelf. This science project to discover as many means of invisible ink as possible is not limited to kitchen ingredients. Here are a few more ways to write that secret message in invisible ink.

Take out your white crayon and write a message on white paper with it. It will not be visible straight off. To read the writing you can use some water paints to color up the paper. The area which is covered by the wax crayon will not get colored by water paints and the secret message will show up clearly.

Use petroleum jelly to write a message on any surface besides paper such as the walls of your room. This can be seen using a blacklight. You will have to turn off all the regular lights in the room for the writing to become visible. Works best at night. Similarly you can use UV ink on paper to write a secret message. This can also be made visible using a blacklight.

In case you don’t have a blacklight you have another option. Use cornstarch to make a paste with water. Use the resulting solution as invisible ink and to make it visible you will need to coat the paper with iodine solution.  Have more invisible ink options? Share them with us for this science project.

In the last blog post we saw how we could use lemon juice to write a note in invisible ink. This beats buying commercial invisible ink as you can get lemon juice from the kitchen any time you like and at a much more reasonable rate. Is lemon juice the only kitchen ingredient that can be used to make invisible ink? No, there are a few more. Consider this a science project to identify other sources of invisible ink in the kitchen.

Equal parts of baking soda and water make a fairly good invisible ink. Once you make the solution use a simple ear bud made of cotton to dip and write your secret message. Wait for the paper to dry. To read the message take some grape fruit concentrate and dip a paint brush in it. Paint the paper with the grape fruit concentrate to make the message appear.

Another good invisible ink that you can find easily in the kitchen is milk. Take some in a bowl and use with a cotton ear bud to print out your note on paper. Once the paper has dried and you want to make the message visible hold it against the light bulb of your table lamp. As the paper heats up your message will appear clearly. Can you find out more things to use as invisible in in this science project?

Although letter writing is a dying art in the day of the internet and email, it may still be fun to share a note written in invisible ink with your friend. This simple science project based on elemental chemistry allows you to keep a secret message for your friend a secret even as you write it all down on paper.

Here’s what all you will need – a lemon, a knife, a bowl, a brush, a candle, a matchbox, a piece of paper and your very own secret message. Now cut the lemon using the knife into two halves and squeeze the juice of the lemon into the bowl. You may like to enlist the help of an adult for using the knife.

Next dip the tip of the brush into the juice extracted and use it on the paper to write down your message. Once the message is completed you can place the paper down to dry off. As the lemon juice dries the message will become invisible. Then you can pass it on to your friend to read it.

Your friend will need the lit candle to slightly warm up the paper for the secret message to show up. Have an adult around so that the paper does not burn and the message end up in ashes. Make it an even more interesting science project by using different types of fruit juices to see if they can be used as invisible ink as well.

Earthquakes are caused by tectonic plates rubbing against each other in the Earth’s crust.These are the cause of mountains and valleys on the Earth. In fact the hot core of the planet is what has ensured that life survived and flourished here. They are not all doomsday and destruction.

With the recent spate of earthquakes that have been experienced over the globe in the last decade there is no need to testify to the destructive force that they can be. Human populations in urban areas are what get affected the worst in case of earthquakes. Here are some science projects that could help us deal with them in the future.

Make a study of how likely an earthquake is to strike your state and city. Naturally those states located within the “ring of fire” are likely to have a higher probability of an earthquake hitting them. Come up with the statistics of past earthquakes in the region and use them as a guideline to predict the damage that any future earthquakes in the area may do.

Work out an earthquake rescue plan for your neighborhood. It need not be very elaborate but try and deal with essentials like water, food and medicines. The science project will give you an idea of just what to expect in a real life earthquake situtation.

Do you have amazing ideas for science projects but are wondering what to do with them all since you have no outlet? Here’s your chance to get in to a global competition. You can enter your science project on the online Google Science Fair. This is an annual event open to people from all over the world.

You will need permission from your parents to participate and need to be in the age group of 13-18 years. The entry form can be downloaded from the Google Science Fair 2013 website and filled in by your parents. The form can be submitted via email after scanning, fax or regular snail mail. All addresses are available on the website. You will need a google account to participate, but if you have a gmail id you already have one.

Don’t think you can do it alone? The science project can be a team effort or an individual one. Think you have a world changing idea? This is the platform to showcase it. Just make sure that you read up on all the rules of the competition before you begin work on the project. Don’t want it getting disqualified for any silly reason, do we? Plan out the science project and work towards your deadlines. Avoid procrastination and push for creative thinking.

You’ve got a smart phone, he but do you have a smart dress? One which changes its hue each time you move? The latest in creative textile design allows you to have just that. Learn more about this innovative science project.

At the Concordia University in Canada researchers have come up with an interactive electronic fabric that uses body heat of the human wearing the fabric to change its visual look. The project has been aptly named Karma Chameleon said Joanna Berzowska, professor and chair of the department of design and computation arts at the university.

The biggest difference with this fabric is that the electronic components have been woven into the fabric itself rather than being attached to it separately. Many layers of polymers are used in the fabric which start interacting with each other as they are stretched giving rise to the different visual patterns in the fabric.

The textile industry is calling this the new “smart fabric” and there are hopes that the material will soon be available to make actual garments. There is more than one fashion house watching closely to see how this science project develops further. Imagine the possibilities of future garments made using this fabric!

Exploring exoplanets seems to be next on the agenda for NASA. The space exploration authority has decided to send out a satellite in 2017 to study both exoplanets and neutron stars. It is called TESS or Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. TESS will handle the survey of habitable planets in nearby star systems.

As can be imagined while the mission is small the findings will have a huge impact. TESS will try to find terrestrial planets, those which have sizable land, located in the habitable zone around the central star. There are sure to be plenty of gas giants out there but the researchers are looking for some more rocky ones like Earth.

As per the head of the mission TESS will carry out the first space-borne all-sky transit survey, covering 400 times as much sky as any previous mission. It will identify thousands of new planets in the solar neighborhood, with a special focus on planets comparable in size to the Earth.

That much more chance of them finding a substitute Earth. The follow up will include the study of the atmospheres of such suitable planets. The results of this science project will surely have a huge impact on how we view other planets as possible future homes to civilization.