Setting up an experiment

The setting up of your experiments correctly will help you conduct proper experiments as part of your science fair project. The designing of a good experiment depends on three main parts – the problem, the hypothesis, and the process that you test the hypothesis with.

The problem is essentially any question that you wish to find a definite answer for. Now if we deal with the problem of how fast an ice sculpture will melt at a garden party we have a fixed set of variables to deal with. Some of these will be the purity of the water that is used to make the ice, the temperature in the garden at the time of day the party will be held, the air pressure and sea level affecting the place, etc.

Now factor in all these variables and make a clearly defined hypothesis such as “How long will it take an ice sculpture of 20 pounds weight take to melt in the garden in the evening if it is made of tap water in a place that is 354 feet above sea level.” Now you can go about the actual experiment of developing the ice sculpture and seeing how long it took to melt.

Record all the steps along the way in a journal. You can even get a line graph of how fast one sculpture melted in the day and how much longer it took a similar sculpture to melt at night. Endless variations can be part of the science fair project.