My Scientific Process A Self Evaluation by Sophie Skelton Scanned with CamScannerIdeation 1. Whatwas your research question or engineering goal this year? To figure out the best focus on pollution, we need to research different types and possible ways to solve them. 2. Explain how you tried to identify your research question or problem. We needed to figure out a research question that set up a field of pollution topics for us to focus on. It was ‘apparent right off the bat this project was going to be more than one year, so we were going to spend this one trying to find the perfect topic. Because of that, we made sure to state that in our research question. 3. What sources did you use to come up with your idea(s)? All our sources for our lt review were peer-reviewed scholarly papers, but the main thing that inspired me was The Qcean Cleanup 4, Whatwill you do differently next year to expedite the process of deciding what to do? If my partner and | decide to continue on with this project. we'll have to decide whether we work on preventing oil spills or cleaning them up. If for some reason we decide to split up a start on our own projects I'd focus on a more focused, lesser developed topic. One that has more room for improvement (i.e. Bees). Scanned with CamScannerThe Ocean Clean Up (see ideation 3) WE eo { THE OCEAN CLEANUP Scanned with CamScannerResearch 4. Completely summarize the information from an article that you referenced on your tri-fold. One of our shortest articles, but one of the most helpful we used (Effects of Oil Spills on Wildlife. (2010). Congressional Digest, 89(6), 170-192.) gave an informative on the behavior of different types of oll and how they act in the ocean. It also gives an assessment of how oil can, directly and indirectly, affect different organisms, 2. Explain how the lit review helped you - if you feel it did not help, explain why. | eel the lit review helped me get a better hold on my sources, and force me to look deeper into the topic. The time spent doing it was well invested and helped me shape the future of this project. 3. What will you do differently next year to incorporate the information you gather in your lit review into your planning and product? Next year | intend to find even more sources that lay out an overview of everything done into oil spill prevention and cleanup. | fee! like | should invest a whole lot more time in my lit review next year. Scanned with CamScannerProcedure 1. Briefly describe what you did (your procedure). We were encouraged to buy a kit that was based on different types of ocean pollution. It was two separate labs that had us make a mock ocean out of a milk carton. We then tested a variety of things to try and get a hold of how they interacted with water. 2. What challenges did you have when developing your procedure? We actually got a booklet with a more detailed procedure that we had to comb through and simplify it 3. Whatwould you do differently to make this part of the project easier for you to manage? | definitely wouldn't waste any time on anything like that again. It didn’t add any groundbreaking information that changed the course of my project. Scanned with CamScannerScanned with CamScannerPaperwork 1. What challenges did you have with your lit review? My lit review wasn't as in-depth as | would have liked it. On top of that, since we planned for it to be a research year we didn’t know what specific topic we were going to focus on for junior year. 2, What challenges did you have with GSEF paperwork? There definitely were some setbacks with having to redo our paperwork because we had started outlines for previous topics before approval. Not to mention there was some confusion about how to make the procedure. 3. What challenges did you have with your research journal? We had journal checks once a week for two different classes where we had towrite a certain number of entries a ‘week. For the first half of the semester, the number was three. At times this was frustrating if there was a lull in the project because we would get significant points off our journal check grade. Scanned with CamScannerPaperwork (cont.) 4. What challenges did you have with your tri-fold poster? For the tri-folder, a lot of what we needed to have on there was bulked up significantly. ! would have combed over it and had made sure that there weren't repeats in the data and paragraphs. 5. What suggestion(s) would you give next year’s freshmen for managing the paperwork. Definitely do not try and put it off until the last second. That will only harm you in the long run and end up taking more time if you procrastinate. Scanned with CamScannerScience Fair 1. Briefly discuss the conclusion of your project. This project was part 1 of where we researched different types of ocean pollution using a lab and peer-reviewed articles. This led to us choosing our focus to be on oil spills where next year we'll see if there are possible ways to clean up/prevent oil spills. 2. Describe your overall science fair experience a. What did you enjoy? Definitely choosing what topic to focus on. It feels like you could solve any world problem if you put your mind to it. b. What do you need to work on? Definitely the Abstract which | don't think i full grasped the concept of how to write one. Scanned with CamScanner