In the past students had to submit a 5-page project summary. This year we have reformatted the way in which we want to hear about your science fair project – referred to as your Project Board. This is to mimic the platform that Canada Wide Science Fair uses and helps the judges understand the “story” behind your project, with a focus on the visual aspects of your project. Images, figures, and graphs are encouraged and won’t contribute to word counts, but should be used modestly to supplement the written material in your report.
NOTE: For students selected to go to the Canada Wide Science Fair, in 2024 you will have only a few hours to transfer your Project Board components to the CWSF application form (deadline is April 30). Pay attention to detail as you create your Project Board as you will not have time to make substantial changes to the content. As you likely will be doing “cut and paste” after the awards ceremony on April 29, it would be a good idea to have the source material for your Project Board available with you (memory stick, cloud access).
You will be submitting a pdf of your Project Board for the VIRSF registration. Follow the guidelines below:
Title Page/Abstract:
Enter your project title and name
Summary
Tell the story of your project. Write for a middle school (age 11-13) audience. Avoid scientific jargon and acronyms.
• One sentence to introduce the question/problem.
• One or two sentences describing what you did.
• One or two sentences summarizing the main results or explaining your solution.
• One sentence describing the importance of your work.
MAXIMUM 100 WORDS
Why:
Tell us your story–your WHY!
You can use sections such as purpose, hypothesis and background information, or a more narrative approach.
Some ideas you could include:
- Why did you do this project?
- What or who inspired you to do this project?
- What question were you trying to answer or what problem were you trying to solve?
- Who could benefit from your project?
- How can it make the world a better place?
MAXIMUM 250 WORDS
How:
How did you perform your experiment or develop your solution?
Give an overview aimed at a middle school audience. You can use sections such as materials, methods, procedures, design process and testing procedure, or a more narrative approach. Figures, photos, or prototype sketches can be used to show what you did.
Some ideas you could include:
- How did you do your background research?
- How did you identify relevant and trustworthy sources of information?
- What was your experiment or design process?
- How did you design and test your solution or prototype?
- What materials did you use?
- How did you collect your data?
- How many samples did you test?
- How did you control the variables?
MAXIMUM 300 WORDS
What:
Tell us your results! What did you find out?
You can use sections such as results and analysis, or a more narrative approach.
Some ideas you could include:
- What are the main results or findings of your project?
- How does your prototype work?
- Discuss your results.
- If you used statistics, explain why you chose the methods you used.
Show your results in graphical form – only include graphs or figures that summarize your data and support your conclusion. Please, don’t include every graph or table!
MAXIMUM 500 WORDS
So what:
Tell us why your results are important and what they mean.
You can use sections such as discussion and conclusion, or a more narrative approach.
Some ideas you could include:
- What are the conclusions you can draw from your results?
- What did you learn from your results?
What does this mean for our world?
MAXIMUM 250 WORDS
What’s next:
Tell us how you could extend your project.
You can use sections such as further research and future improvements, or a more narrative approach.
Some ideas you could include:
- What could you have done differently?
- How could you improve your project?
- What are the next steps or future projects?
MAXIMUM 100 WORDS