Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

What do you do when your project doesn't yield the wanted results and you don't have the time to redo the whole experiment? Thanks!

Hi Simone,

I am sorry your results did not come out as expected. Did you want to share more details and we can discuss them more?

If you do not get the results you expected, the project is still a great learning opportunity, right? The point of the project is to work through the scientific method and present your results... the point of science project is NOT to get a specific result. There are many reasons why your results did not happen the way you expected: Your hypothesis may not be correct, there could be something wrong with one of the things you used in your project (like a chemical or seeds), or there could be a variation in how you performed the project or collected the data. All of these things are ok because we can learn from them!

I suggest you continue on with the steps in the Project Guide (found here: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ndex.shtml ) and include a special section in your write-up for why the results aren't as expected. If you can think it through you may figure out what happened and how you would fix that next time. If you need help with that, let me know the details of your project.

Good job completing your experiment and good luck with the final stages of your project!
Tonya

Hi,

I was able to get some help finding a few more resources to help you. Below are two of our blogs that discuss what to do when things don't go as expected!

This blog post lets students know that it's important to explain what "really happened": https://www.sciencebuddies.org/blog/201 ... p?from=AAE

And this one from the blog deals specifically with what to do when things go wrong (how to troubleshoot - not how to present that the project didn't go as planned):
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/blog/201 ... p?from=AAE

I hope these help you further!
Tonya