Au Duong
Independence High School
Mrs. Bailey
May 29, 2007

Experiencing Science

This year's science fair was my first 'serious' science fair experience, and was a definite eye opener for me. The last science fair I had participated in was in middle school, where students just worked on quick and simple projects. The drive for competition, further research and improvement that was lacking then was what made my experiences at sciencepalooza! and The Synopsys Championship unlike anything I had previously encountered.

In many ways, the development of a science project is different from the structured format of labs and activities in class. The obvious increase of freedom in the creation of the project outline and brunt of the decision making allows the student considerable room for creativity. Nothing can replace the experience and understanding gained from going through this process. Things like making sure all of the independent and dependent variables are known and monitored, and deciding on sample size based on many factors including availability of glassware, volume of solutions made, and measuring devices are all a step beyond what goes on in a normal class lab. Collaboration, perseverance, flexibility, and thoroughness, are all traits I built upon by entering the science fairs. Motivation was also another point reinforced by this experience. Unlike my previous science fairs, this project was entirely self initiated, with all time spent on it outside of class. Going through the entire process, from idea to outline to experiment and finally analysis, showed me more of the subject's aspects. I was not just doing the obvious experimental and data collection portion, I also had to write explanations for my conclusions, orally communicate my ideas, and present my results as part of the 'real life' experience.

Science is a never ending process, and it was the actual fair itself that really pointed this out to me. Looking at a picture of the scientific method 'circle' and actually applying it to a personal example is vastly different. I especially need to thank the judges for pointing so many things out to me: the holes in my reasoning, the obscure but important variables, more accurate ways of presenting information, and suggestions that practically turned my science project on its head. Instead of 'causes' influencing the 'effects,' some of what I thought were dependent variables might actually have been affecting other independent and dependent variables. I would test these new hypotheses in a next science project, which would start the cycle all over again.

Despite having learned so much this time around, I am sure the next science fair experience will be full of more lessons. Still, I think the most important lesson I learned is that students do not have to wait until college or later to do a meaningful or significant science project. All a student needs are ideas and the desire to find out more. I was continually impressed by the depth of other student's projects and knowledge, which inspires me to work even harder next time.