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Research
Moderators: AmyCowen, kgudger, bfinio, MadelineB, Moderators
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haybar
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:11 pm
- Occupation: student
- Project Question: What size soda can will be most affected by air pressure and condensation?
- Project Due Date: February 16, 2015
- Project Status: I am conducting my research
Research
Hi! I really don't know what to research on other than what condensation is and what air pressure is. Please give me some ideas!
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bradleyshanrock-solberg
- Former Expert
- Posts: 260
- Joined: Thu Aug 25, 2005 7:44 am
- Occupation: Software Engineer/QA Lead - Quality, Risk Assessment, Statistics, Problem Solving
- Project Question: BS Caltech Engineering & Applied Science (Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science)
Research in Traffic and Ceramic Composites
25 years doing IT, various roles, for multinational manufacturing company - Project Due Date: n/a
- Project Status: Not applicable
Re: Research
Hello and welcome to the forums.
Science Buddies has a large number of experiment ideas here.
I recommend the topic selection wizard to try to find something that you are actually interested in, and to read carefully the project guide as well.
Keep in mind that science fair projects are usually structured around a question. Science is not really about learning a long list of facts, although that is part of the training, to learn the work done by others. Scientific research is intended to take something you know, make a change, and learn something you do not know.
So a project to teach you about condensation as a concept isn't really appropriate. A project to try to find out why you sometimes see condensation on the inside of a car in the morning, and sometimes do not is much more interesting. If this was what you were trying to do, you'd then try to pose it as a question, with a possible answer based on what you know already, or what you learned by looking up condensation.
eg, "Why is my car window fogged up often in the winter and not in the summer"
leads to looking up what causes car windows to fog up at all (moisture in the air, properties of windows, temperature)
then you come up with a thery, a "hypothesis" saying "glass will fog up faster if <independent variable> while keeping <constant variables> the same.
Then you try it out with real glass, and figure out a way to test perhaps different temperatures or humidity or different types of glass (each of these could be your independent variable, but some are easier to change and therefore test than others)
Science Buddies has a large number of experiment ideas here.
I recommend the topic selection wizard to try to find something that you are actually interested in, and to read carefully the project guide as well.
Keep in mind that science fair projects are usually structured around a question. Science is not really about learning a long list of facts, although that is part of the training, to learn the work done by others. Scientific research is intended to take something you know, make a change, and learn something you do not know.
So a project to teach you about condensation as a concept isn't really appropriate. A project to try to find out why you sometimes see condensation on the inside of a car in the morning, and sometimes do not is much more interesting. If this was what you were trying to do, you'd then try to pose it as a question, with a possible answer based on what you know already, or what you learned by looking up condensation.
eg, "Why is my car window fogged up often in the winter and not in the summer"
leads to looking up what causes car windows to fog up at all (moisture in the air, properties of windows, temperature)
then you come up with a thery, a "hypothesis" saying "glass will fog up faster if <independent variable> while keeping <constant variables> the same.
Then you try it out with real glass, and figure out a way to test perhaps different temperatures or humidity or different types of glass (each of these could be your independent variable, but some are easier to change and therefore test than others)