Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi...Thank you for any pointers you can give me regarding my sons 4th grade science project.

His interest is in making things work faster to his advantage. He loves gardening. He wants to use air movement to make the holes in the ground to place the seeds in for planting his garden. He thinks it will be faster to create the holes with his dad's air compressor.

It has to use the Scientific Method.

We thought of this: How does the PSI of an air compressor affect the depth and width of a hole created in the ground?

The only varible is the PSI. The ground would be the same, the height he holds the nozzle off the ground will be the same, the nozzle is 1/8th inch wide, he will apply 5 seconds of air pressure (using a stop watch).

he thinks the holes will be deeper but not wider with more PSI.

Ok...all looks good to us. Now, we are confused on the Hypothesis, Problem, conclusion areas of the board design.

Does he include why he wants to know this? The part about the gardening etc. or does he leave this out and only stick to the fact and data of the experiment?

Thanks for any help!!

Unless the science project instructions ask specifically for why he wants to know how PSI of the air compressor affects depth and width of a hole, that information shouldn't be needed. Stick to being objective unless otherwise instructed.

Hope that helps.

Hi,

If you need more information about the question, hypothesis and conclusion parts, you can look here:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentorin ... thod.shtml

And he doesn't need to include why he wants to know this unless he is required to.

Good luck with your project. =)

Hi Bayva,

Hypothesis basically means how you think the experiment will turn out. You stated "he thinks the holes will be deeper but not wider with more PSI. " That is his hypothesis. You can make it sound a little more scientific... Increasing PSI will increase the depth etc , but either way that is a good hypothesis.

The conclusion part of the board will interpret the results and whether they agree with or disagree with the hypothesis. So if your son finds that the increase in PSI does increase the hole depth that would be a conclusion that supports the hypothesis. But maybe he finds that the width varies as well and then those results would disagree with the hypothesis.

I am not exactly sure what they mean by "the Problem" in this context. I would say that this part is for the background information, why he wants to know this and the part about the gardening etc. I think it is good to show that the experiment actually means something to your son rather than something someone else has done before that he found on a science fair website. It demonstrates innovative thinking and practical applications of science.

I presume that there are methods and results areas of the board as well that you didn't mention because you already know what you will put there.
It sounds like you already have all of your controlled variables fixed and are just varying the PSI which is a good design. You could have a future work section where you say how you could look at some of these other aspects.

Sound like you are doing a great job and have an interesting experiment that has a real-world value which means something to your son.
Well done,

Caroline

Hi All!

Thank you for the wonderful responses to my questions. His Design Board came with labels/stickers and we do not have to use them all. Problem was one of the labels along with Introduction.

We are going to use the Problem area as the back ground information to make the project more personal. (Thanks Caroline).

We do understand the Materials, Procedure, Data and Conclusion areas. We did not do much research (actually we couldn't find anything!). I don't believe this is on any science fair site either.

We have Photos to include under Data along with a graph showing results. He will include a written section under the conclusion area.

I don't believe I remember participating in any science fair as a child, so this was all new to me.

We are enjoying the experience....thanks for all of the great help!