Science Project Timeline

I have been running science fairs successfully with my students for 12 years now.  For new teachers, managing a project of this size and scope can seem daunting.  Why not just copy what I've got so far and make changes where you'd like to make them?

This link will take you to my 6th and 7th grade Project Timeline, which has worksheets, guidelines and rubrics attached for most of the items that are to be submitted.  Let me know which work best for you...if you'd like me to post something in particular, drop me a comment!

Science Project Timeline

Mythbusters Tour Comes to Connecticut!

Yeehaw!  Jamie and Adam are coming to the Bushnell Theater in Hartford, CT next March 31, 2012.  Click here for a tour schedule.

I do love a good mythbusting, and this show will be particularly appropriate for me this year, because the theme of our science fair this year has been selected in honor of our School Theme: The Year of the Story.  So, the Science Fair theme is: Myths, Legends and Folklore: BUSTED!  Or something like that...I'd like to do a Middle-Level mythbusters-type of fair.  Perhaps this is where we could go for our field trip right before the fair?

There is a link to buy tickets for a group...I wonder how much they would be?  I will update this post when I discover what the group rate is.


Mythbusters On Sale Now! from MAGICSPACE Entertainment on Vimeo.

Mythbusters Tour Comes to Connecticut!

YouTube SpaceLab: Get your students experiments into space!

"Imagine your experiment, 250 miles above Earth, for the world to see. What will you do? We're asking you to come up with a science experiment for space and upload a video explaining it to YouTube. If your idea wins, it will be performed on the International Space Station and live streamed on YouTube to the world. And we'll throw in some out-of-this-world prizes, too. Can plants survive beyond the Earth? Could proteins in space reveal the mysteries of life? Science in micro gravity can help unlock the answers. The countdown's begun."


Watch the video below, or click here to go straight to the SpaceLab page where they have all of the important information, like submission deadlines, requirements, age groupings (sorry, middle and elementary schoolers, you have to be at least 14 years old...), etc.


The PRIZES are AMAZING!


There will be six Regional winners chosen from each of 5 Global Regions (so that's 30...).  


Regional Winners:

A trip to Washington, D.C. USA, including an
exhilarating ZERO-G flight.

A Lenovo© IdeaPad© U300s Ultrabook™ each.

Global Winners:
There will be two Global winners (one from each age group) that will win the following:

Your experiment is carried out on the International Space Station and streamed live from space on YouTube.

An amazing space experience of your choice: watch the rocket with your experiment blast off in Japan or wait until you're 18 and take cosmonaut training in Russia (WHAT???).

A trip to Washington, D.C. USA, including an
exhilarating ZERO-G flight.

A Lenovo© IdeaPad© U300s Ultrabook™ each.

YouTube SpaceLab: Get your students experiments into space!

Paperless Science Fairs: Other Options besides Google Docs

Kelly Bell is a science teacher with a Paperless Mission!   I sooooooooooo appreciate her.  I also did a quasi-paperless science fair this year with Google Docs (all of our 8th graders are 13 or older), but we have 450 students in the 8th grade and in order to have the projects presented all together at the same time, we had a traditional tri-fold-display fair night.  We simply do not yet have the technology to support a paperless "Exposition" event.

Some of her ideas are similar to mine, like setting up your website to serve as a sort of "database" for due dates and downloadable items (worksheets, templates, rubrics, etc.)...Here's an idea to add to that:  how about a timeline/checklist that combines all that? See here: My Project Checklist page

However, Ms. Bell has gone many, many steps further and put together her tech "tutorial" lessons into a Google Presentation that her kids can view online.  It's called "Need Help?".  It is intended to be a resource for STUDENTS as a set of reminders on how to do some of the important technology-based steps of the project.  It includes instructions on how to use an online graphing tool (we use Google Spreadsheets--if they know how to use Excel, they're good to go!) from the NCES site, and a terrific Works Consulted tool called BibMe.

I love BibMe

"BibMe is a free automatic bibliography generator that supports MLA, APA, Chicago, and Turabian formatting. BibMe leverages databases provided by Amazon, FindArticles, Yahoo! News, and CiteULike to quickly and accurately AutoFill citation information for you. BibMe will then format the citation information according to the rules and guidelines of the style guides. If you prefer, you can enter your citation information manually. BibMe also contains a quick citation guide to show students the correct syntax for citing in various formats."


Here are links to my other posts on Science Projects:

I'm in SCIENCE PROJECT Looooooove!

Mar 25, 2010

I have several posts to offer on this topic, and will be deluging you with ideas and tips, but here's my very first one: Science Buddies. WOW! There are approximately 10 to the 5 billionth science project sites out there,

 

Rocket Aerodynamics

Mar 25, 2010

Rocket Aerodynamics is a sample project from Science Buddies. If you look in the right hand side of the page, it gives you time estimates and cost estimates. It also coaches on number of trials, averaging, controlling variables and a ...

The Science and Technology Lady: Google Docs Science Fair: Chapter ...

Apr 12, 2010

I did promise to give you lots of ideas for science fair projects. My use of Google Docs for my students projects (along with ScienceBuddies) has REVOLUTIONIZED my grading* (posting on that at a later date) and made it much easier for ...

Paperless Science Fairs: Other Options besides Google Docs

I'm in SCIENCE PROJECT Looooooove!

I am a middle school teacher, and in the 8th grade, we always finish up our year with the Science Fair Project. I have several posts to offer on this topic, and will be deluging you with ideas and tips, but here's my very first one: Science Buddies.

WOW! There are approximately 10 to the 5 billionth science project sites out there, but this one is my absolute current favorite. I have been teaching for 10 years and this is the most comprehensive, not-your-typical-5th-grade-project site. Where to start? How about the

TOPIC SELECTION WIZARD!

I ran through the wizard myself, pretending to be the 8th grade version of me, and I got a terrific selection of age-appropriate projects. Actually, I think conceptually these are pushing the envelope, but that's exactly why I liked them. They give you topics based on your interests (the survey itself is interesting--2 phases of questions, the second refines searches based on your first set of answers). You can also refine your search after you get your results by increasing or decreasing the difficulty level of the problem being investigated.

I'm going to require my students to complete the wizard...I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh, I forgot to tell you about the other excellent part: The PDF document called "What makes a great science lab notebook?". I also have been teaching about and using notebooks for years, but it is extremely difficult to find actual images taken of professional scientist's notebooks. This guide is written at an appropriate level, and includes pictures that illustrate each example. Phenomenal!

I'm in SCIENCE PROJECT Looooooove!