Step 3:  Topic Selection



If you’ve made it this far, you may already have an idea of what you want to learn about in your project this year.  Once you do some research, this may change.   Overall, you should think of a question that you can attempt to answer with your experiment.  At the bottom of this page there is a list of projects to avoid that comes directly from the PRSEF website.

Important things to consider for your topic are:

  • Is it testable? 
For example, it’s difficult to test what would happen if the Earth stopped spinning because we aren’t actually able to stop the Earth and measure the changes… and if we could, we’d probably make at least a few people angry

  • Is there a perceived cause-and-effect relationship (or a correlation)?
For example, if you really like watching videos of anthills being formed, it may be fascinating, but there’s not much to test at that level of detail.  PJAS and PRSEF require participants to conduct experiments, not merely research

  • Is there research available to use as a starting point?
Our very next step will be to learn about your project so you can formulate a hypothesis.  You will want to learn what we know about the topic first before you design an experiment.

  • Can you measure the results?
Good results are not subjective.  If your project sounds like a survey question like, “Which tastes better?”, you don’t have a numerical way to measure taste and should choose another project.  Similarly, if the measurements are too difficult to obtain because they require expensive measurement devices, you may want to select another topic.

  • Can you obtain the materials?  If they are dangerous, hard to find, expensive, or illegal, you’ll want to choose a more appropriate project.
Not only can this make your project difficult to complete, but it may also violate the rules of PJAS or PRSEF and you may not pass the approval process.

  • Will testing this cause unacceptable risk or harm to the subjects?
It may be unethical to impose certain treatments, especially on human and non-human vertebrates.  This includes psychological harm as well as physical harm.  Obtaining tissue samples is not something that can be done outside of a scientific laboratory setting and is subject to additional scrutiny in the approval process.
 
 
You’ll know you are finished coming up with a project once you can ask a single research question.

  • Your research question should be specific.
  • Your research question should NOT be obvious (Do taller candles burn longer?)
  • It should satisfy the list of considerations at the start of this page.

e.g.  What is the effect that different brands of potting soil will have on growth of cilantro plants?

ADD YOUR RESEARCH QUESTION TO BLANK #1 ON YOUR EXPERIMENT WORKBOOK. (Guidebook available here)



You should have a good rationale for conducting your experiment.  Why do you want to do this project?  Why is this research important and applicable?  What are the potential impacts of your results?
 
e.g.  I want to conduct this experiment because my family grows cilantro plants every year, but we can never get them to grow like our other herbs and vegetables.  This experiment can help my family and other cilantro growers to produce a better plant.  With the results of my experiment, I hope to be able to help correct our cilantro growing problem and share the knowledge gained with my community.

ADD YOUR RATIONALE TO BLANK #2 ON YOUR EXPERIMENT WORKBOOK.