Keeping a Lab Notebook and the Scientific Method

Thomas Edison kept LOTS of lab notebooks!

When you begin thinking about your science fair experiment you will want to get a composition book (the kind of notebook that is stitched together at the binding and won’t fall apart when you use it a lot) and keep all the ideas and thoughts you have about your project in it. Call it your “LAB NOTEBOOK” – it sounds so impressive and official! Don't put your name on the outside (science fair judges don't want to see your name when they judge), but do eventually include the title of your project on the cover so the book doesn't get lost. Number all the pages in the top or bottom corners and leave a few pages at the beginning for a "table of contents" - just like a chapter book or a text book. Each time you begin to write in your book, write the date and then go back to the table of contents and write the page number and what you are writing about on that page so it will be easy to find when you need it again.

You can put all of your ideas in this book, even if they end up not being what you decide to do for this science fair project. In the beginning you may not know what will work out and what won’t so just put everything in there. For example, maybe you are interested in why that volcano explosion thing we talked about before works but don’t know much about it yet – write it down as a possible idea.

The next step is to do a little research to find some information about the science that relates to your ideas. When you know a little bit more about those ideas you can begin to decide which can be made into experiments and how to do it. If you are still a young scientist and all that writing take a long time you might want to enlist the help of a “lab assistant” to help you keep your notes and make important experimental decisions, but the ideas should be yours. Back to our example of the volcano reaction… this section of your lab notes might be some information about why vinegar and baking soda react together to make a bunch of bubbles. What kind of reaction is it? (acid-base) Which part is which? (acid=vinegar, base=baking soda) What is in those bubbles it makes?(CO2) What is an acid anyway?(Ph level less than 7, edible things that taste sour are often acidic like pure lemon and lime juice) What is a base? (Ph level greater than 7, things that feel a little soapy or slippery when they are wet are often basic).

With an idea for an experiment and a little background information about the science all swimming around in your head you might be able to make a good guess as to the outcome of your experiment. This is called a hypothesis. In our example, knowing that the volcano reaction is an acid-base reaction and that vinegar is acid and that other acidic things are sometimes sour tasting might help you to decide what might happen when you react different things with baking soda. You might make the hypothesis that sour things like vinegar and lemon and lime juice will react to make bubbles and things that are not sour, like milk and water and soda won’t.

A lab notebook in its natural habitat, a lab bench.

Now comes the step that is the MOST fun, the experiments! Come up with different trials of your procedure. In our example we can mix a small amount of baking soda with a small amount of the liquids mentioned before. Each new combination is a trial and the measurements, conditions (the temperature, if you stir it or not, do you add the liquid to the baking soda or the baking soda to the liquid) and the results of the trial should all be recorded in the lab book. Even young scientists can record data by drawing small pictures of what happened or making x’s or check marks in a data table drawn by the “lab assistant” for either a positive result or a negative one – in our example, if the reaction made bubbles or not. The more original work done by the scientist the better – as long as it is within their ability level and does not overly limit their enthusiasm for the project.
experiment that will either prove your hypothesis right or wrong. Write down all the steps you follow to do each trial - this is your

Finally, go back and look at your hypothesis and the results of your experiments and see if you were correct or not. Make some conclusions about why it turned out as it did. In our example… well, I won’t spoil it for you so you can do those experiments yourself and see if I made a good plan or not. I will say that my hypothesis was not 100% correct, I will leave it to you to find the trial or trails that did not agree and figure out why (but please don't do this example as your science fair project, find one of your own design).

Keeping all your information in one place in a lab notebook helps you keep it organized and all together, keep accurate records of what you did and when you did it and helps you remember what the results were. For the science fair it also lets the judges see how hard you worked and all the great ideas you had along the way, as well as how well you are able to organize and think about your results (the data).

Good luck with your projects! Please let me know if you have any questions and don't forget to let me know what you will be doing by turning in a Science Fair Idea form before Spring Break - the forms and the folder to turn them in are on the book shelf near Mrs Buro's office in the Media Center.

Finding an Experiment for Science Fair

What are you curious about?     

        What makes you  wonder? 

                                                                             

           What are the things that make you ask        

                  “WHY?” 

Those things can often make great science fair projects! Talk to the adult that will help you and look around on some of the websites I have recommended on the right side bar for ideas if there are just too many possibilities to narrow down. The next thing to consider is if you think you can make that interesting thing into an EXPERIMENT.

So what makes an experiment? There are lots of fun science activities that are NOT experiments. Making a 'volcano' explode with baking soda and vinegar is an awesome demonstration of some basic chemistry, but it is not an experiment. Learning a little about capillary action by watching colored water creep up a celery stalk is interesting, but not an experiment by itself. Picking up little pieces of paper with a drinking straw you have charged by rubbing with the paper wrapper looks like a great magic trick that is based on science, but it is NOT an experiment (it is a very old demonstration first described by an early Greek scientist named Thales of Miletus in 600 BC, but he used a rod made of amber and a piece of wool, not a plastic drinking straw and it’s wrapper!).

An experiment is a lot like a multiple part demonstration where each separate part has a lot of things that are the same – CONSTANTS - and one thing that is different – the VARIABLE. If you try the same thing with one condition that changes you can then see how the result changes. Let’s take the example of the volcano reaction I talked about before… that reaction creates gas – it is what fills the bubbles that make up the foam that spills up and out of the cup. What would happen if you used the same amount of baking soda (a constant) and changed something about the stuff you put in it? You could try different amounts of the same vinegar. In this case the vinegar itself is also a constant and the AMOUNT of vinegar is the VARIABLE.  Or, you could try the same amount of several different liquids… like white vinegar, milk, cider vinegar, soy sauce, lemon juice, lime juice, water. In this case the amount is a constant and the KIND OF LIQUID is the VARIABLE. The really fun part comes in when you see how the result of the reaction changes as the variable changes. You can record the results of your experiments and decide why you think the different conditions had the results they did. THAT is an experiment!

In the case of the capillary action in the celery stalks, different colors in water as shown in the picture probably would not be different enough to see a change. However, you could put one stalk in a cup of colored water in the refrigerator, one at room temperature, and one in a box warmed with a light bulb. You could then check on them at different times to see how far the dye had crept up the stalk. The different temperatures might make a difference in how fast the celery takes up the colored water. In this example what do you think the CONSTANTS are? What about the VARIABLE?

There are other things to think about when doing your chosen experiment, but the first step is to choose something you are curious about and decide how to make it into an experiment. There will be posts soon about how and why to keep a lab note book and go about figuring out a hypothesis, and things to keep in mind that will help you follow good experimental procedure. For now, get yourself a composition note book and start by writing down some ideas about things that make you wonder and how you might do an experiment with that idea or activity.  If you can't think of a way, ask for help from either an adult or by leaving a comment here or emailing me. I would love to hear what excites you and makes you curious.

Until next time... keep wondering!

2014 Cheatham Hill Science Fair

Happy 2014 everyone!
It is once again time to think about science fair projects! I am working on a date for this year's fair - trying to coordinate with another district level science fair that is, as yet, unscheduled so we don't have a firm date yet. However, it will be in late April. This will give you plenty of time over Spring break to work on your experiments and still have lots of time to write it all up in a report and make a great display before the deadline!
The guidelines are on the page called "Cheatham Hill Science Fair Guidelines" linked at the top of this page. They are the same as the guidelines for the fair for last year, so some of you will already be familiar with them.
Projects should be experiments. This has been a very common issue with some projects in the last few years... there have been some really great ideas that were not presented in the form of an experiment and lost out on judging points because of that. You should keep a lab note book while you figure out what you are going to do and while you carry our your experiments. When your experiments are complete and you have analyzed your results and drawn some conclusions you should write up a short report that outlines the experiments, your hypothesis, the procedure you followed and your results as well as what you think it all means.
I will have some additional suggestions about how to find a project and how to make it experimental in the coming days. For now, try to come up with a list of things that interest you that you might use as a project. I will update this blog with the final date when we know more. I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!

Google Science Fair Finalists - check out these amazing young scientists!

I am incredibly humbled by the accomplishments of these young scientists. They are doing work at a level not achieved by many adults and doing it with their own drive and innovation. I hope for the best for each one of them and wish they could all receive massive amounts of additional funding for their research. Check out the projects, be impressed by the innovation and vote for the "Viewer's Choice" project at the Google Science Fair website between now and August 30th. The winners will be announced in the end of September. Good luck to all of them!

Cool Experiment with ICE!

This post is not strictly science fair related, however, it is a really great demonstration of the effects of density and the fact that water is denser than ice. I found out about this experiment via a weekly email and have a few suggestions on helpful ways to change it. The original is here: Spangler's version . The run down is that you will use a layer of vegetable oil (density=0.91), a layer of mineral oil (density=0.8) and a piece of ice which will become water (densities = 0.91 and 1 respectively). Add a little food coloring in the bottom and you get some awesome magic!

So, here we go... Take a clear container and add a few drops of food coloring. Add the vegetable oil... only make it corn oil because it is slightly denser than vegetable oil (density=0.92). The food coloring will not mix with the oil because it is water soluable.  Now add the mineral oil (baby oil works) by pouring it gently and slowly onto a spoon slanted to the surface. Make sure there is a good couple of inches of mineral oil on the top. Next comes the fun part... Grab an ice cube and place it gently on the surface and watch what happens.



Go... Do it... Then come back.




OK, (that was a pause so you could watch your setup) so what happens is that the ice floats between the two oils and then melts... Water (melted ice) is heavier than both the ice and the oil so it drips off and falls to the bottom where it mixes with the food coloring! Shazam!

Now, in my experiment, pictured below there is already a large layer of water in the bottom and the top of that layer looks a little dusty. The surface tension of the water layer at the bottom holds up the drips for a little while before they 'fall through' and mix with the water.

The importance of a lab notebook

Hello Scientists!

We had a very good question submitted about one of the required elements of a science fair project. We ask in the guidelines for the fair that you keep a lab note book during the course of your project. The question was about what is expected to be in a lab notebook.

An elementary school science fair lab note book should contain:

*brainstormed experiment ideas or things to include in an experiment you have already decided on

*some background information you have learned about your topic

*possible variables and the other things you must hold constant so that your experimental results show ONLY the effect of the one thing you changed (your variable) in each experimental trail

*one or more possible hypotheses about your experiment (what you think is going to happen when you perform your experiments)

*your experimental set up - how are you going to perform your experiment? What will be varied, what held constant? What will be measured and how will you measure it? What equipment will you need?


*Once the experimental design has been decided, draw out a diagram and write a step by step plan (your 'procedure') that you can refer back to so you can always do the experiment the same way


*Begin a new page for every experiment, date the page and write all the important details of what happens - some little things might not seem important at the time but may explain an unexpected result later! Remember to perform every trial of your experiment several times to see if the data is the same every time. Record your data in the notebook so you can make a snazzy chart or graph to display it on your project board later. 

*Any conclusions you might make about your results can be worked out in the lab book as well.

You should write clearly enough that you can read it later, but perfect spelling is not very important. If you do want to change something, just cross it out with one or two lines and write it again.

That seems like a lot of stuff!!! Just think of it as a diary for your science fair project. Write everything down in there first, and then go back to the lab book later when it is time to write up the project and make your poster. Everything will be there waiting for you... no lost papers with important data or revolutionary ideas that you can't quite recall. If you aren't the fastest writer and your fabulous ideas come too fast and furious for you to keep up you can enlist the help of an older helper, but try to write some of it yourself because practice makes your skills better and faster. When it is time to turn your project in write the title of the project on the cover (but NOT YOUR NAME) and turn it in with the poster.

Remember that the deadline for submission of your hypotheses is February 13th. The forms are in the Media Center by Mrs Burro's office. I am excited to report that I have had to put more in the stack once already and the first hypothesis has been turned in! As always, email me with any questions or post them to the blog as a comment. 

Cheatham Hill Elementary Science Fair... The 2013 edition!

Welcome back all you fabulous CHES scientists! 

The 2013 Fair will take place beginning Wednesday March 13th and last one week until March 20th. We are requesting that you turn in a title and hypothesis for your project by February 13th so that we can plan for display space and judging and so that you can decide on a topic with ample time to conduct experiments and make your write up and display.We had such fabulous experiments last year we can't wait to see what our scientists come up with this year.

The guidelines have not changed from last year and can be found at the tab at the top of the blog entitled Science Fair Guidelines. I believe that you should be able to highlight the content you wish to print and 'print selection' from most devices. If you have trouble and need a printed version of the guidelines please let us know and we will make them available in the Media Center at CHES. We will again be awarding 1st, 2nd and 3rd place ribbons and the small science experiment prizes that were a big hit last year. The top two winners at each grade level will be entered into the Tom Matthis Council PTA district Science Fair which begins March 21st. 

The above photo is an example of the type of display we are expecting. This one was last year's 2nd grade first place project. The title and hypothesis are clearly evident. The background research is summarized (here on the right), the method and experimental conditions are also summarized (here shown on the left). The experimental data is represented by graphs and photographs. A written report is included (in a folder attached to the board) and the lab notebook is included in front of the board. The scientist's name and school are NOT visible on the display, although they are written on the back of the display. 

If you have questions about any of this information or about the Science Fair in general please feel free to comment on this post or email the blog owner (Eden Hunt). If you are interested in helping out with the fair in any way... at check in time on the 13th of March, coordinating judging, project transport to and from the TMC Fair in north Metro Atlanta please contact Eden. If you need ideas for projects many of the links on the right sidebar have experiment ideas and we can help you with ideas on how to turn many interesting science demonstration into a science fair worthy project in no time! 

Good luck and we can not wait to see the projects in March!