How to Write a Science Fair Project

by E. Robert Schulman
Alexandria, Virginia

Introduction
    Schulman, Cox, and Schulman (1999) examined the stacking properties of toroids that reflect radiation in the 1.8 to 2.8 eV energy range. The junior author of that paper had an age of 0.9167 yr at the time that study was performed. This paper documents a followup study that the researcher peformed when she had an age of 11.1667 yr.

Methodology
    Corrugated fiberboard, air cellular cushioning material, and newsprint were circumferentially arranged around synthetic polymerization vessels filled with solid dihydrogen monoxide. The vessels and materials were placed in cylindrical containers. Vessels outside of containers provided experimental controls. Three trials were conducted simultaneously. The experimental setup is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Experimental Setup

    Prior to the commencement of the experiment, each of the twelve vessels was filled with 59 ml of liquid dihydrogen monoxide and reduced to a temperature of 255 K for 57 kiloseconds, which converted the liquid dihydrogen monoxide to solid dihydrogen monoxide. The vessels were placed in the experimental setup as described above and allowed to progress towards thermodynamic equilibrium for 7.2 kiloseconds. The liquid dihydrogen monoxide was removed from the vessels after this point and the mass of the remaining solid dihydrogen monoxide was measured. The vessels were replaced and allowed to progress towards thermodynamic equilibrium for a further 3.6 kiloseconds, after which the mass of the remaining solid dihydrogen monoxide was measured again. The heat transferred was calculated by assuming a specific latent heat of fusion of 334 J/g for dihydrogen monoxide.

Anomolous Results
    Corrugated fiberboard sample 2 had significantly less solid dihydrogen monoxide at 7.2 and 10.8 kiloseconds than the other two corrugated fiberboard samples, although it exhibited a similar rate of heat transfer to corrugated fiberboard sample 1.
    Air cellular cushioning material sample 2 exhibited the greatest rate of heat transfer of all the samples (0.619 mW greater than than mean of the control samples).
    Control sample 2 exhibited the smallest rate of heat transfer of all the samples (0.464 mW smaller than the mean of the newsprint samples).
    The tendency for sample 2 to be anomolous is not currently understood.

Conclusion
    Newsprint has superior thermal insulation properties when compared to corrugated fiberboard or air cellular cushioning material. In addition, this research showed that junior researchers can be surprisingly adamant about not utilizing obfuscative nomenclature in their research reports, thus requiring senior researchers to compose their own versions.

You can also read the researcher's version of this report.