I am in Grade 5 and interested in the Durham Regional Science Fair. I am interested in investigating why sharks have so many teeth, which is not an experiment and would be considered an investigative study. I have not been able to find a good scientific method or outline/format to follow for this type of project so I am not sure how to present my data or if this is even considered a suitable topic.
Thanks,
Kayla
Investigative Study
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Re: Investigative Study
Hello Kayla,
Have you looked at the Science Buddies project guide:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ience-fair
I think that your investigative study would indeed need to have most of the sections described in the project guide. You won't have a section entitled "Experimental Design" but you will need a section describing the plan and design of your investigations. You will surely need to have a background section and a section to list all the references you use to investigate why sharks have so many teeth.
In the process of investigating why sharks have so many teeth, you might identify some other species who have very few teeth so you can compare the characteristics of each species and explain which characteristics seem to dictate how many or how few teeth.
You might even make a graph of the association between number of teeth and some characteristic - and you could use a tooth as the symbol on the graph!
Look at the project guide and make an outline for your study - let us know if this helps and if you have more questions!
Have you looked at the Science Buddies project guide:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ience-fair
I think that your investigative study would indeed need to have most of the sections described in the project guide. You won't have a section entitled "Experimental Design" but you will need a section describing the plan and design of your investigations. You will surely need to have a background section and a section to list all the references you use to investigate why sharks have so many teeth.
In the process of investigating why sharks have so many teeth, you might identify some other species who have very few teeth so you can compare the characteristics of each species and explain which characteristics seem to dictate how many or how few teeth.
You might even make a graph of the association between number of teeth and some characteristic - and you could use a tooth as the symbol on the graph!
Look at the project guide and make an outline for your study - let us know if this helps and if you have more questions!