The most important advice we can offer is to make sure your students are answering a question, not just building a model of something.

The days of making a volcano or building a light circuit as a science fair project are long gone.

If your students follow the Scientific Method or Engineering Design Process, they will naturally select the right kind of project that will do well at SARSEF or any competition.

• Any topic that boils down to a simple preference or taste comparison. (For example, “Which tastes better: Coke or Pepsi?”) Such experiments don’t involve the kinds of numerical measurements we want in a science fair project. They are more of a survey than an experiment.
• Most consumer product testing of the “Which is best?” type. This includes comparisons of popcorn, bubblegum, make-up, batteries, detergents, cleaning products and paper towels.
• Effects of colored light on plants. Several people do this project at almost every science fair. You can be more creative!
• Effect of music or talking on plants. Difficult to measure, and has been done a million times already.
• Effect of running, music, video games or almost anything involving blood pressure. The result is either obvious (the heart beats faster when you run) or difficult to measure with proper controls (the effect of music).
• Effect of color on memory, emotion, mood, taste, strength, etc. Highly subjective and difficult to measure.
• Any topic that requires measurements that will be extremely difficult to make or repeat, given your equipment. Without measurement, you can’t do science.

Any topic that violates the rules of virtually any science fair will disqualify a student before it is even judged.

These include:

• Any topic that requires dangerous, hard to find, expensive or illegal materials.
• Any topic that requires drugging, pain or injury to a live vertebrate animal.
• Any topic that creates unacceptable risk (physical or psychological) to a human subject.
• Any topic that involves collection of tissue samples from living humans or vertebrate animals.

Projects will be judged using one of two sets of criteria: either the Scientific Method or the Engineering Design Process.

Although very similar, scoring is slightly different.

Some projects fit well under both areas; however it is best to have your student decide which he or she will be using to complete a project, and then stick to it.

Read below for a quick description of each process or visit the Judging Criteria for more details.

Scientists study how nature works. Engineers create new things — such as products, websites, environments and experiences. Because engineers and scientists have different objectives, they follow different processes in their work. Scientists perform experiments using the Scientific Method; engineers follow the creativity-based Engineering Design Process.

Scientific Method

Engineering Design