Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi,
I started doing background research on my topic several months ago. I came up with a question (interesting enough for a mentor to take me on-- several, for that matter), but now as I continue my research, I can see that VERY similar experiments in the past have been done. Would the judges see this quickly and deduct creativity/originality points for this? How should I go about minimizing the apparent "lack of creativity" in my project, or is it something that I might not even need to worry about? I'm already too far into my project to turn back.

This is the main concern I have for my research project-- I feel that I should be able to excecute the rest of my project fairly well.

Thank you very much;
-M

Methionine,

I suspect it depends on a number of things, including as you say the judges' knowledge.

Here's what I suggest: Try to think about what exactly you are bringing to the research that no one else has in the past. Perhaps there are different analyses you could do, or you could follow up on something no one else has followed up on, or maybe you could use a different technique. Has anyone used the exact same materials you're using or studied the exact same organisms?

In science, not everything is as clear-cut as science textbooks suggest. Sometimes if you use different materials, different analyses or different study organisms, you get different results. Often these results are more interesting than the original results.

Without knowing more about what exactly you're doing, though, it's hard to tell how the judges will react to it. Keep in mind that the vast majority of experiments presented at science fairs have been done before. The important things are that you're interested in the topic, that you understand how and why things are happening, and that you present your research well.

Hi,
Thanks for your response. My topic involved something on gene expression and intron lengths. I suppose that my gene I'm studying is different than the others previously studied and that would make it different, but I felt that might be inadequate.
-M

Not at all. Every gene is different, and correlations between intron lengths and gene expression in one gene may be radically different from those for another gene. It'll probably depend on how important the gene is, etc. What I do suggest you do is learn everything you can about your gene and why it is important.