Welcome to the Dalewood Science Fair 2011/2012 PRESENTATION

1. Welcome to the • Dalewood Science Fair 2011/2012 PRESENTATION • To see the next slide please click LEFT mouse button, or press ENTER. • To see a previous slide, click on the UP Arrow.

2. DALEWOOD Science Fair on • Thursday, February 16, 2012 from 3p.m. to 7 p.m. • BASEF (Bay Area Science and Engineering Fair) at Mohawk College from Wednesday, March 23rd to Saturday, March 26th, 2012 http://basef.ca/ • Projects with the MEDIAN score of 80 % or over chosen to represent Dalewood at BASEF • (maximum 16 projects)

3. http://basef.ca/

4. Bay Area Science & Engineering Fair – at Mohawk College

5. and http://basef.ca/BASEF2010awardwinners To see examples of winning projects from last 2 years Visit : http://basef.ca/BASEF2011awardwinners

6. Junior: Grades 7-8 • Intermediate: 9-10 • Senior: 11-12 At BASEF Students compete within 3 separate grade levels:

7. Deal with HOW and WHY things happen, Science Fair projects should: • be Interesting to you – if the topic does not fascinate you, your project and your presentation will show it, and the evaluation of your project will suffer, • be Unique – unlike any other project, • Have practical applications,

8. Is the question simple enough to solve? When choosing the subject of your project ask yourself: • Is the question complex enough to interest me? • Can I get the resources and materials? • Can I complete the work in time? Please see the Info Package and the Dalewood Science Fair webpage for the websites that might help you in your project selection process.

9. an experiment 3 TYPES OF PROJECTS: • a study • an innovation

10. 1. EXPERIMENT

11. PARTS of a Science Fair Project: These parts must be placed in the same order as shown below: • Your DISPLAY andthe NOTEBOOK will have: • Abstract • Background • Purpose • Hypothesis • Procedure • Observations • Results • Conclusions • Discussion

12. PARTS of a Science Fair Project: These parts must be placed in the same order as shown below: • Your NOTEBOOK must also have: • Glossary of Terms • Bibliography • Appendix

13. 1. EXPERIMENT - most popular type of project, The PURPOSE of any experiment is to find out: “How does something cause something else to happen?” For example: I‘ve read in a Globe and Mail article that certain types of flowers are more likely to attract honey bees to a particular area. So the PURPOSE of my experiment would be to find out: What TYPE of flowers would attract the highest NUMBER of honey bees to my cherry orchard?

14. 1. EXPERIMENT What TYPE of flowers would attract the highest NUMBER of honey bees to my cherry orchard? What makes this an EXPERIMENT is the fact that you canmanipulate the INdependent variable: You can manipulate (change) the TYPE of flowers you plant near the cherry orchard.

15. ABSTRACT: • should be placed at the beginning of your Notebook and your Display I will explain about the Abstract later in this presentation, when we know more of other parts of the project,

16. BACKGROUND: • the information gathering and literature research part of the project, • use it to learn what others researchers have done on the same topic, • include the information the average person would need to know to really understand your project, • So in this case I might research and write about: • the importance of the honey bees to their ecosystem, and to our economy, • species of bees most common in your area, • what percentage of flowers in my area is pollinated by honey bees, • information about lifecycle of bees, • bee predators, competitors, and diseases, • include pictures of the bees common in your area,

17. PURPOSE: • The purpose of this project is to find out: • What TYPE of flowers would attract the highest NUMBER of honey bees to my cherry orchard? HYPOTHESIS: An informed guess about the outcome of your experiment, based on prior knowledge – BEFORE you do the experiment: what do you think is the answer to the question stated in the PURPOSE.

18. Think of your written procedure as a recipe for your work. PROCEDURE: • Include a detailed list of materials, including any safety equipment. • Your plan should be so detailed that another person could use it to repeat your work, and get the same results. • If, during the experiment, you change the way you do the experiment, your procedure must show it.

19. As you plan your procedure you must know: • What is your independent variable : • in this case . . . . • the TYPE of flowers, • Must be able to MEASURE the independent variable. • Must be able to CONTROL the independent variable. • Must be able to CHANGE the independent variable.

20. As you plan your procedure you must know: • What your dependent variable is: • in this case . . . . • the NUMBER of honey bees (e.g. # of bee visits in 1 week, or in 1 hour) • Must be able to MEASURE the dependent variable.

21. For your procedure you must also consider: • What other variables could affect the results of your experiment: so, beside the type of flowers, what else may change the number of bee visits? These other variables are called CONTROLS • in this case the CONTROLS might be: • the season; at certain times of the year bees huddle and do not leave their hive in order to survive the cold temperatures, • the time of day; the bees may be more likely to feed at certain times of day, e.g. at noon, when the sunlight is brighter and more flowers are open,

22. For your procedure you must also consider: • CONTROLS (continued): • the weather; bees might be more likely to feed on warmer days, when the bee body temperature is higher, • Are there any honey farms with hives in your area, • What other flowers are in the area outside of your testing area; the bees may not be interested in one type of flowers, because other flowers are also available, • Must be able to control all the variables that might affect the outcome of your experiment.

23. PROCEDURE: (continued) If you have difficulty controlling the independent (and other) variables you must explain: in the DISCUSSION part of the project : • why these variables were difficult to control, • how the inability to control those other variables may have affected your findings, • suggest how you might improve your control of the variables if the experiment were done over. NOTE: Discussion is a later part of the project, it is placed after the Conclusions:

24. PROCEDURE: (continued) The experiment must be REPEATED, at least 10 times. 50 or 100 times is better!!!

25. OBSERVATIONS: • measurements made (in metric units), • usually presented in a table, (each table with its own title) • record both quantitative and qualitative observations, • take PHOTOGRAPHS at every stage of your work. REMEMBER: when making your observations describe only what you have observed, do NOT make any conclusions in your observations.

26. OBSERVATIONS:show your observations in a data table, each table with its own title Number of Honey Bees vs. Type of Flower

27. RESULTS:show your results in a graph, each graph with its own title Number of Bees vs. Type of Flower 303 266 217 D E P E N D E N T V A R I A B L E total # of bees 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 162 104 dandelion daffodil tulip clover mixed type of flower INDEPENDENT VARIABLE

28. CONCLUSIONS: Describe the outcome of the experiment (what you have found out in the experiment) and explain whether or not your hypothesis was correct. So, in this case, just ANSWER this question: What TYPE of flowers would attract the highest NUMBER of honey bees to my cherry orchard?

29. DISCUSSION: • Do your best to explain why the experiment turned out the way it did. • Explain other relevant observations. • Explain why the experiment was successful or why it wasn’t, including sources of errors and suggestions of improvements. • All the work must be IN YOUR OWN WORDS. • If you use somebody else’s words, they must be in “QUOTATION MARKS” followed by the reference # right after the quote is finished. • Printouts of webpage materials belong in the APPENDIX.

30. Glossary of Terms: Definitions of words that may not be familiar to most people (optional, but highly recommended) Bibliography: A list of the books, articles, and specific web addresses that were used for research. See the Info Package for detailed explanation. Appendix: Additional material such as raw data collected, survey sheets and copies of the internet research material, articles etc. (optional) Acknowledgements: A thank you to the people who helped with the project.

31. ABSTRACT: • It should be placed at the beginning of your Notebook and your Display. • An abstract is a short (one page MAXIMUM) summary of the entire project in a concise, complete and accurate way. • Hint: have 2-3 copies laying on the table in front your display (in page protectors). To see examples of ABSTRACTS see the winning projects from last 2 years (each of these project has its abstract online) Visit : http://basef.ca/BASEF2011awardwinners and Visit : http://basef.ca/BASEF2012awardwinners

32. BE CAREFUL !!! Make sure that you really do have an EXPERIMENT, rather than a DEMONSTRATION Building a vinegar and baking soda volcano is NOT an experiment, it is just a demonstration. To make it an EXPERIMENT, you would have to change the amount one of the ingredients, e.g. vinegar for the same amount of baking soda.

33. 2. STUDY: STUDY: Does Stretching Really Improve Your Flexibility

34. 2. STUDY: Your STUDY, your notebook, and your display will have the same parts as an experiment.

35. 2. STUDY: A study examines things that are connected but not necessarily cause each other. The PURPOSE of any study is to find out: “What type of relationship exists between something and something else?” Your PURPOSE could be do find out: Is there any relationship between the TYPE of flowersthat grow in your area and the NUMBER of bees that visit the area?

36. 2. STUDY: Is there any relationship between the TYPE of flowersthat grow in your area and the NUMBER of bees that visit the area? What makes this a STUDY is the fact that you do NOTmanipulate the INdependent variable: In this case; you don’t decide which flowers to plant in the area, you just observe whether there is any connection between type of flowers and the number of bees in the area.

37. 2. STUDY: • In your DISCUSSION you might try to find and discuss the cause of this relationship, to explain why bees are more likely, or less likely, to visit a field overgrown with dandelions than a field of clover. • If you find that there is no such relationship, in your DISCUSSION you might try to find and discuss why you did not find any relationship between these two factors.

38. 2. STUDY: have a large data sample • you may collect your own set of data or analyze data already collected by someone else – if so, the data should be analyzed in an innovative way, • the data should be gathered over a long period of time, • if doing a study, or an experiment with human or animal subjects special forms have to be filled out. HUMAN subjects have to fill out CONSENT forms, plase see Rules section of the BASEF website • AVOID SURVEYS – have been done to death!!!

39. The World’s First Cuckoo Clock 3. INNOVATION:

40. 3. INNOVATION: • Invention, or a gadget, improvement of an existing device, or system, or even a computer program. • The PURPOSE of any innovation is to find out: • “In what way could somethingimprove the performance of something else?” • Example: • Can a device, invented by you, significantly reduce number of honey bee predators present in the area resulting in higher pollination rates, and higher fruit yield?

41. 3. INNOVATION: So you decide to: • DESIGN and BUILDa device, which could significantly reduce number of honey bee predators present in the area. You will need to TEST your innovation and find out: Will there be a significant increasein the number of honey bees visiting your fruit trees when your device is used?

42. 3. INNOVATION: • must perform a task – a useful task, or solve a problem, e.g. a robot that just walks is too simple, but if the robot can pick up something, and move it somewhere else – that can be a useful task, • build a working model and bring it to the Science Fair, • test your model and report on whether it brought about the improvement that you expressed in your hypothesis, • take pictures along the way, include them in your notebook and your display,

43. Examples of innovations (from previous Science Fairs): several innovations at BASEF were remote controlled robots which were designed for surveillance. They: • could travel to places too small or dangerous for a person to go to, • carried sensors that could send information through cameras, or microphones, or smoke detectors, • main problem: difficulties when travelling on uneven surfaces, e.g. stairs. • A Dalewood student’s innovation was a computer program that could be used to arrange groupings of students for a school trip, e.g. for the Muskoka Woods trip, (Mira)

44. WORKING WITH A PARTNER: Maximum 2 students / project (groups of 3 are not allowed at BASEF, so only groups of 2 at the Dalewood Fair) Consider the following: • are your parents OK with this partner? • are partner’s parents OK with you? • will the partner do his/her share?

45. JUDGING FORMS Judging form very similar to the BASEF form will be used at the Dalewood Science Fair. A. Scientific Thought ………………..45 % B. Display ……………………………10 % C. Notebook and Work Journal ……. .20 % D. Abstract .……………………………5 % E. Interview ..…………………...…… 20 %

46. Project evaluation: Scientific Thought 45% Some of the things judges take into consideration: • Have you followed the scientific method (are all the parts of the project present: background, purpose, hypothesis, etc) • is your data sample large enough to be scientifically significant? • are you able to control the variables (you have a fair test)? VERY IMPORTANT!!! • are you able to suggest improvements to your project? • is the project original – even when using an old idea, you can get a high mark, for scientific thought, if your approach is original, • Is all the work in YOUR OWN WORDS?

47. Project evaluation: Display 10% • an attractive summary of the complete project, • should be sturdy and freestanding, • see the BASEF webpage for required dimensions, • FONT! 24 pt or larger, bright colours • but no NEON colours • all elements of the display should be very well attached, nothing hanging or dangling. Please see the Info Package for detailed information.

48. Display Yvonne Alama and Sierra Robertson-Roper

49. Display By Valen Varangu Booth and Louis Garber

50. Display By Andrew Crowther and Jack Leighninger