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Ok so for my chemistry class our teacher is making us do "Outside Activities" as part of the curriculum, and a part of it is designing and conducting your own experiment. Now this subject isn't one of my strong points, So I was hoping you guyz could help me at least come up with an experiment. Can anyone suggest an appropriate one that I can conduct in school (Chemistry related of course), and that doesn't require stuff that I obviously cant get a hold of. Also if you can, tell me the basic things, such as IV, DV, Research Question,etc. Thanks so much in advance for any help I get.

Oh and here's what our teacher gave us:

Read it if you want...

Designing the Experiment
Plan a science fair project
You should choose a topic of interest to you that you would like to investigate. It should be appropriate to your level of knowledge in the science curriculum. The research plan will include the following items/documents.
i. Intent to participate in Science Fair Form (required of all students)
ii. Your research question (2 points)
iii. A review of the literature and your Hypothesis (12 points)
iv. Your variables (IV, DV and what must be held constant) (2 points)
v. A list of materials and a diagram of the experimental set-up (2 points)
vi. A bibliography with at least three sources cited correctly (2 points)

Conducting the Experiment
Carry out your science fair project OR an extension of a lab done in class. You must get approval of your experimental plan from your teacher before you carry out the experiment and science fair projects require a series of forms prior to experimentation.

You could use the experimental plan you developed or you could take an experiment that you have completed in class and design a follow up experiment that could be done. The follow up experiment should have a different IV/DV than the experiment done in class.

For the follow up experiment only (this was already done for the science fair experiment) you will need:
i. Your new Research question (2 points)
ii. A review of the literature and your Hypothesis (12 points) (most likely based on the original experiment done in class) (2 points)
iii. Your variables (IV, DV and what must be held constant) (2points)
iv. A list of materials and a diagram of the experimental set-up (2 points)
A bibliography with at least three sources cited correctly (2 points)
For both projects you will need:
v. Your proposed procedure – the procedure should state the values for the variables to be held constant, it should state the values of the IV that you propose to use and it should clearly state how many trials are to be repeated for each value of the IV. (4 points)
vi. A completed data table that clearly identifies the variables, their units of measure, and the values measured in the experiment. (2 points)
vii. Processing and Presenting your data – at a minimum you should create a graph to display your data and show any trends. Any calculations that must be done to construct the graph should be explained and the calculated values should be listed in a table.The graph should have a title and clearly labeled axes.(2points)
viii Processing and Presenting your data - The variables should be shown correctly on your graph and you should include a trend line and equation (if appropriate for your data). (4 points)
ix. Evaluation of your results – what can you conclude about the relationship between your variables, based on your graph? (5 points)
x. Evaluation of your procedure – what sources of error arose during your experiment and how could they be minimized in the future? (5 points)

Vinegar baking soda volcano!

I built a Gauss cannon for my science fair project.

Don't know that I can help with a suggestion - but as far as IV and DV my guess would be that he's talking about independent and dependent variables. In the experiment the dependent variable will be the one you measure, the independent is the one you manipulate to produce your predicted effect.

He wants you to pick a subject - in doing so you will have to research it. When you do it take good notes because this is where 12 of your points will come from. The suggestion is that you could followup on an experiment that you completed already (in class) - but look at it in a different way and form a hypothesis predicting a different result.


~Granps

You won't get a lot of help with requests with science projects or science fairs. Coming up with your own, unique and productive/imaginative thesis/experiment is no easy thing, and most people won't be willing to give you their ideas for free. You'll be better trying to think of one yourself and make it an original work.

that would be good if i was in 5th grade... lol

Im not really asking any of you to do any work for me, just merely for some suggestions. Because coming up with an experiment out of nothing is difficult for me to do. Im sure when I get a good suggestion, something will jump into mind.

I found an experiment I think might be good to do... but half way through it, I realized.. does this even have an Independent Variable? If not how can i adjust the experiment so it does?


http://www.unitednuclear.com/icepack.htm

I built a 3ft diameter hovercraft last year...won best engineering project in the state science fair.

lol this is a piece of shit assignment that I don't really care about. Im just doing it cuz I have to. I dont need nothing to fancy, just something that works. I listed above an experiment I think is perfect, but I just need to know what should the IV be, cuz it doesn't list one.

Cleaning pennies with Coca-Cola.

turn pennies into golden pennies

Seems like you propose to measure how fast heat can be absorbed when Ammonium Nitrate is dissolved in water. A simple way to create an "Independent Variable" would be to use a saline solution (salt water) instead of water. You could vary the amount including a super saturated solution (heat it first) and measure the resultant change in the final temperatures. You might want to consider how fast the temperature changes as well.

Another "variable" you could consider would be varying the amount of Ammonium Nitrate used. I don't know that temperature will vary significantly - so my example might not work for you.


~Granps

IV: NH3 + NaOCl amount
DV: Deaths per 100 subjects

Question: Is it a cost-effective way to kill people during war time? You'll get lots of WWI citations.