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Steps of the Scientific Method

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What is the Scientific Method? The scientific method is a process for experimentation that is used to explore observations and answer questions. Do all scientists follow the scientific method exactly? No. Some areas of science can be more easily tested than others. For example, scientists studying how stars change as they age or how dinosaurs digested their food cannot fast-forward a star's life by a million years or run medical exams on feeding dinosaurs to test their hypotheses.… Read more

ASCII Table with All 256 Character codes in decimal, hexadecimal, octal and binary

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7-bit ASCII Character Codes The ASCII table contains letters, numbers, control characters, and other symbols. Each character is assigned a unique 7-bit code. ASCII is an acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Decimal Octal Hex Binary Value Description … Read more

Engineering Design Process

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What is the Engineering Design Process? The engineering design process is a series of steps that engineers follow to come up with a solution to a problem. Many times the solution to a problem involves designing a product (like a machine or computer code) that meets certain criteria and/or accomplishes a certain task. This process is different from the Steps of the Scientific Method, which you may be more familiar with. If your project involves making observations and doing… Read more

What are Variables? How to use them in Your Science Projects

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What are Variables? In science, a variable is any factor, trait, or condition that can exist in differing amounts or types. Scientists try to figure out how the natural world works.To do this they use experiments to search for cause and effect relationships. Cause and effect relationships explain why things happen and allow you to reliably predict the outcomes of an action. Scientists use the scientific method to design an experiment so that they can observe or measure if changes… Read more

How to Use a Breadboard for Electronics and Circuits

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Many electronics projects use something called a breadboard. What is a breadboard, and how do you use it? This tutorial video will give you a basic introduction to breadboards and explain how to use them in beginner electronics projects; you can also read more details and see more examples in the text sections. More About Breadboards Introduction What is a breadboard? Where does the name "breadboard" come from? Are there different kinds of breadboards? What is a "solderless"… Read more

Science Fair Project Question

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Finding an Idea for Your Science Fair Project One of the most important considerations in picking a topic for your science fair project is to find a subject that you consider interesting. You will be spending a lot of time on it, so you do not want your science fair project to be about something that is boring. We know that finding a topic is the hardest part of a science fair project, and sometimes you just need a little help focusing on what sorts of topics would be of interest to… Read more

Science Fair Project Display Boards

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Materials and Construction Techniques Use a self-standing display board like these. Display boards in black or white-colored "foam core" (a sandwich made up of two pieces of smooth surface paper with a polystyrene (plastic) middle) or corrugated cardboard are readily available at many retailers ranging between $4 to $14 per board depending on the material. Print out or write your information on white paper that you will attach to your display board. Be sure to… Read more

How to Use a Multimeter

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Multimeter Overview Not sure what a multimeter is or what you can do with one? Then you're in the right place! Below is an overview of what multimeters are and what they are useful for. To learn how to use a multimeter, to find multimeter usage ideas, or to find labeled photographs of assorted multimeter models, click on the quick links in this multimeter tutorial. This section includes answers to the following questions: What is a multimeter? What can multimeters… Read more

Writing a Hypothesis for Your Science Fair Project

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What is a Hypothesis? A hypothesis is a tentative, testable answer to a scientific question. Once a scientist has a scientific question she is interested in, the scientist reads up to find out what is already known on the topic. Then she uses that information to form a tentative answer to her scientific question. Sometimes people refer to the tentative answer as "an educated guess." Keep in mind, though, that the hypothesis also has to be testable since the next step is to do an… Read more

Interpreting Plates

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Bacteria grow tremendously fast when supplied with an abundance of nutrients. Different types of bacteria will produce different-looking colonies, some colonies may be colored, some colonies are circular in shape, and others are irregular. The characteristics of a colony (shape, size, pigmentation, etc.) are termed the colony morphology. Colony morphology is a way scientists can identify bacteria. In fact there is a book called Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology (commonly termed… Read more

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