Plan an Advanced Science Project Over the Summer

High school students! Get started brainstorming, researching, and planning an advanced science project!

Image: Artem Podrez, Pexels

Are you looking at the coming school year and thinking about doing a science project for an advanced competition?

In addition to being an exciting way to experiment with a science topic you care about and that might fit with your academic and career goals, advanced projects and participation in top science competitions are great to list on college applications.

Projects for advanced competitions require a novel idea, extra planning, research, and time. If you want to compete at top science fairs next school year, summer is a great time to get started!

Follow these steps to jumpstart your project:

1. Pick a Topic
2. Review Academic Papers
3. Find a Mentor
4. Design and Start Your Project
5. Choose Your STEM Competition

1. Pick a Topic

How do you find a topic for an advanced project? If you already have an idea or a project you are extending from a previous year, you can skip ahead to the next section. But if you are just starting to think about doing an advanced project, you'll need to sort out what you are interested in and what type of project might be competitive at a top competition.

Advanced projects are typically "novel" projects, which means you will be doing experimental trials trying to solve an open question or looking for new approaches or techniques to advance or build upon existing research. Your project will be one that hasn't been done before or that you are approaching in a new way.

The first step is to choose an area of science or a specific question or real-world problem you are interested in. You might, for example, be interested in working on a project related to one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), or maybe you have a personal connection that fuels interest in a project, or maybe you are choosing a project based on your STEM career goals.

If you are browsing projects at Science Buddies, pay particular attention to "Variations" listed at the end of regular projects. These suggestions for extending or modifying a project can help spark interest in a science question or engineering problem that you want to explore with your own unique project. Similarly, Abbreviated Project Ideas (marked with a *) offer an idea for a project that you can then develop independently.

Tip: For additional insight into choosing an advanced project, from previous top science fair participants, see Finding an Idea for an Advanced Science Fair Project.

Once you have identified the general area of interest for your project, you will need to do research.

2. Review Academic Papers

Narrowing in on the exact question you will be exploring with your project will involve surveying scientific papers to find gaps in the research that you might explore. You want to make sure your project is unique. You will also be doing background research to help inform your project, hypothesis, and experimental procedure.

There are a number of free open access repositories you can use to search and access scientific literature from thousands of journals. These include databases like Pubmed, Education Resources Information Center, and IEEE Xplore®.

Before you begin reviewing papers, you will want to make sure you know how to best read and assess scientific papers. The How to Read a Scientific Paper resource walks you through the differences between review articles and primary research articles and outlines the typical structure of an academic paper. This will help you know what to pay attention to when you first start your research.

For a list of free databases and to get started, visit: Resources for Finding and Accessing Scientific Papers.

3. Find a Mentor

For some projects, finding a mentor is an important step when planning an advanced science project. If your project will require lab access, this can be a critical consideration.

Finding a mentor with the expertise and willingness to oversee your project takes time. You will want to do research to identify possible mentors and reach out to them early in the process. The How to Find a Mentor resource has suggestions for getting started and making contact with potential mentors. In the Mentoring & Coaching Advanced High School Student Research document, you will find additional information to help you determine what factors you will want to look for in a mentor.

4. Design and Start Your Project

For information related to setting up your experimental procedure, see Experimental Design for Advanced Science Projects.

Tip: The Roadmap: How to Get Started on an Advanced Science Project contains additional information about conducting an advanced science project. This guide can be a blueprint you can follow as you plan and execute your project.

5. Think About STEM Competitions

If you are hoping to show your science project at advanced competitions, spend time researching options and pathways for local and national competitions and looking at timelines, rules, and guidelines on individual competition sites. Make a checklist of what is required, key dates, and information specific to each fair you hope to attend.

Many advanced fairs involve progression through a series of fairs, often starting with a local competition and culminating with a large national or international fair. You can learn more about local science fairs in the Science Fair Directory. For other advanced competition options, explore events like the National STEM Challenge and the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS), a competition for students in grades 9-12.

Learn more about JSHS in your area

See advanced science fairs in action! For an inside look at what it's like to participate in a top science fair competition, check out National Geographic's documentary series, Science Fair: The Series, which follows nine high school students as they prepare to compete at the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF).

Educators: If you are looking for ways to support students working on advanced science projects, see Elevate Your Science Classroom: Taking Independent Student Science Projects to the Next Level, part of a three-part series on integrating independent science projects in the classroom.