Introduction to Science Fair Projects The Science Fair is one of the most prestigious contests for high school students in order to boost their admissions chances and strengthen their STEM prowess

- but coming up with a project idea for the Science Fair can often be a taxing and frustrating process.

That is why today, we will be guiding you through, step-by-step, precisely how YOU can come up with a successful science fair project idea as a high school student to qualify for your regional or state fair and even win the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF).

Let's go!

Coming Up with a Science Fair Project Idea First, let's explain how to use this guide.

We do NOT want this to be something that you page through once before jumping headfirst into your proposal without a single glance back.

Instead, we implore you to treat this as a checklist, once that you can constantly look back at throughout your project inquiry stage to ensure that you meet each of the requirements for a successful question here.

We also do not want you to blindly follow everything that we mention here without any personal consultance.

Rather, keep in mind what you hope to gain out of this project and use that to steer your proposal in the way that you feel is right.

This guide should build you a solid foundation, but from there, the reigns are yours.

Step 1: Find your Passion Imagine a wanderer traveling the desert, desperately searching for an oasis.

Wouldn't it be easier for the wanderer to find that sanctuary if he had a direction in mind that he could travel in?

Similarly, you cannot come up with a science fair project idea if you lack a direction that you want it to follow.

Additionally, if you come up with any random science fair project idea, no matter how good, it still won't possess that personal touch and resonate with you as much as a project circumscribing a topic that you genuinely enjoy.

This makes the process of completing the process much less enjoyable, and will stifle your chances in the long run.

But how do you find this "direction" to go in?

That is where passion comes in.

Passion could be for anything, STEM or non-STEM related, that you genuinely enjoy doing in both your free time or full-time.

Passion is the thing that makes you smile just thinking about it, the thing that gets you excited, the thing that when you do it, time feels like it flies by faster than you can even snap your fingers.

As to how you can find such a passion?

Just look around!

Observe yourself.

See what you are infatuated by, and what you do on a daily basis out of pure enjoyment.

If you are yet to find your passion despite being as introspective as you possibly can, then think about the major that you want to pursue.

If that still doesn't help, then we encourage you to first try to search around for your passion, which can be done through course exploration, volunteering, or joining clubs at school.

Only once you've found this passion should you try to even think about what you want to frame your science fair project around.

And the quirkier the better!

Some examples of things that people are passionate about that have been used for a science fair project are: Books Knitting Playing with Legos Magic Gardening Cooking Solving the Rubik's Cube Chess Math Sports Car Racing But how?!

I couldn't imagine some of those topics being used for a science fair project?!

That is where imagination comes in.

Judges are tired of pretending to be impressed by students testing different fertilizers on plants or constructing a volcano with a baking soda explosion.

But if you can take your passion about something completely unexpected and wield it into something complex, scientific, and relevant, that is gold.

Which, conveniently, transitions nicely into our next section

- relevance!

Step 2: Relevance of the Project Idea One of the most crucial aspects of a science fair project that judges often times dock the most amount of points for is real-world relevance.

Clearly, finding a novel cure for a life-threatening disease is much, much more relevant of a project than proving the 5-second rule wrong.

But how do you come up with something relevant?

Well, by this point, we would assume that you already have a grasp of what your passion would be, so use that!

This can be done in two different ways: Problems around your Passion

- If your passion happens in a field that is extremely popular and relevant at a higher and more professional scale, then you're in luck!

You can craft your project around your passion by finding a problem in the field that is currently unsolved or not relieved in the most efficient/cost-effective/user-friendly way, and then try to make progress towards fixing that problem.

For example, let's say that you are very passionate about swimming.

However, you notice that a common problem when people swim is that they often get swimmer's ear, which is a bacterial infection caused by moist conditions in your inner ear canal.

This is clearly a very relevant and problematic thing, and thus you can craft your science fair project around something like comparing different methods to prevent swimmer's ear or (if you are doing an engineering project rather than a research project) around constructing a device to help prevent swimmer's ear.

Problems USING your Passion-However, let's say that your passion is something like playing with Legos.

It can be very difficult to find a problem in the Lego industry that has a real-world significance to people, but that doesn't mean you should throw away your passion.

Instead, you can try to find an issue with more pressing real-world implications elsewhere, and then think about a way to incorporate your passion into the solution or testing of this problem.

In this case, you can research problems in civil engineering, and try to use Legos to build a rudimentary model for a better structure or to compare structures in a visual and easy-to-understand way.

Finally, how do you research and find such ideas that would be considered "relevant"?

Our best advice would be to specify in your online research websites that end in ". edu" or ". gov", as well as look at reputable journals that take a deep-dive into various problems that you think would apply.

This stage is very research-intensive and challenging, but trust me, once you've gotten a good grasp of what you want your project to be about, the rest will be much more approachable. https://www. youtube. com/watch?v=RqNZ-L4E3Zw Check out how this past ISEF Winner came up with his own extremely relevant research project idea.

Step 3: Balancing Difficulty and Feasibility of the Science Fair Project It is obvious through just looking at the past ISEF winners and their projects that there is a direct and positive correlation between difficulty of the project and its score.

Going back to a previous example, finding a novel cure for a life-threatening disease is much, much more impressive of a project than proving the 5-second rule wrong.

Therefore, when you are researching your project idea and trying to decide whether the relevant issue pertaining to your passion is something worth exploring further, try thinking to yourself

- if I was a judge having seen thousands of projects, would I be impressed by this one?

This way, you can challenge yourself towards solving something more difficult with respect to the problem at hand, and you have a better shot of creeping into novel territory of something that not many have previously attempted.

However, there is one caveat.

Sure, it would be great to complete a project about sending a chimpanzee to Jupiter, and if you could pull it off, then great.

But before you get carried away by your excitement and passion to solve this real-world problem, it is critical that you take a moment to look back and ask yourself

- is this something that I can really do?

Chances are, some of you may be looking at your own project idea and realize that it is too difficult for anyone, let alone a high school student, to accomplish.

One way of checking yourself on this would be to start looking one step further into the experimentation/construction stage of your project.

If you can think of a brief mental outline of the steps that you would take and the resources that you would need in order to successfully complete the project, and firmly believe that through seeking out help from a local lab or university you may be able to complete it, then go ahead!

Conversely, if it seems a bit too far-fetched (I knew a guy once who wanted to build a nuclear reactor from scratch), then it is likely something that you should scrap.

Step 4: Putting it all Together

- Writing your Science Fair Hypothesis Congratulations!

YOU, the ambitious STEM student that you are, have made it to the end and are almost ready to begin the actual science fair!

Now that you have a project that you are truly passionate about, is relevant to the real-world, and is difficult enough that you (with help from a mentor if needed) can be safely assured that not many other students would have done it, then you are ready to put it all together into one, cohesive science fair hypothesis.

Note: If you are designing an engineering project to resolve a real-world problem, then this hypothesis would be more of a statement about what you hope to make and what it would do.

Although there are many template online that a simple google search would avail you of, we believe that the simplest, most concise, and most effective science fair hypothesis would look like something along the lines of: "We hypothesize that solution would affect real-world problem in [some way according to your research] as a means to [briefly explain why it is relevant including your passion]. " However, there are certain guidelines for creating a hypothesis that may be present in your school or district's own regulations, so ensure that you verify that you are following those as well.

And voila!

You have successfully come up with a crisp, novel, complex, and relevant science fair project idea that you are passionate about and thrilled to pursue.

Now, you have taken the first pivotal step towards success, and have a long road ahead of you to piece it all together.

Want help Winning the Science Fair?

If you want coaching by ISEF winner and Harvard Undergraduate Rishab Jain in order to practically guarantee that the rest of your science fair project goes smoothly, we highly recommend checking out his science fair masterclass linked below: https://www. rishabacademy. com/stem.

Good luck!.