Your science fair project board provides viewers and judges with details about your experiment. Many projects use standard formats for their display boards.
Begin your board presentation by placing the title of your experiment or research in large font. Adhere it to the center panel of your board. Add sections for Literature, Procedure and Results/Conclusions as needed.
Title
Once students have developed their science fair experiment and conducted it with accurate results, it’s important to display it all on a display board. There are various ways of organizing and presenting data on such boards; what matters is presenting it clearly so it can easily be understood by audiences.
An effective title for a science fair board must draw people in by being concise, informative, and eye-catching. It should also provide details about background research, hypothesis development and methods employed during experimentation. A useful way of displaying this data are tables or charts; also choose an easy-to-read font when formatting this section of text.
Literature
Science fair participation offers students many valuable lessons, from developing a better grasp of formal scientific methodologies to honing reading, writing, and logical thinking skills. Furthermore, students develop an attitude of curiosity as well as acquire essential communication, presentation, and mathematical abilities.
One of the hardest aspects of designing a science fair project board is crafting something both visually appealing and informative. Making text legible from far away using dark colors helps it stand out. Furthermore, including visual components like photos or charts can add visual interest for judges.
Science fair project boards can be constructed from any material, but poster board is by far the most popular choice. Available in various sizes and tri-fold versions for easy transporting projects.
Procedure
Conducting a science experiment is one thing, but organizing its results into an easily understandable form can be another matter entirely. Visual components like charts and diagrams can help judges quickly grasp your data.
Your procedure section must include every step you took during your experiment in a clear, chronological order to allow someone else to replicate your work if desired. This will enable them to replicate what has been accomplished with ease and reproduce your results if they wish.
Leftmost panel should display your abstract/hypothesis and supporting literature; experimental procedures and materials (with diagrams, graphs and pictures if applicable), should go in the center; while your Results and Conclusion should come at the end. While this format is commonplace for projects of this nature, you can be creative with your display to produce something truly impressive!
Results
After collecting data, students should present it visually appealingly so that judges may interpret its results easily. This may involve photos, diagrams, charts or graphs which help interpret experiment results accurately.
When possible, a flow chart that details your steps leading up to a conclusion may also prove effective – this approach is particularly advantageous when working on projects with complex calculations.
Students must ensure their display boards conform to published science fair guidelines as well as any school or class requirements. Mock-ups can help students test layouts without making permanent commitments, which will prevent last-minute errors that only surface after they turn in their project. Also, using colored paper frames makes the board even more noticeable.
Conclusions
An effective science fair project board should clearly communicate the essence of an experiment to both judges and viewers of it, making the content easily understood by all. This should include an introduction or hypothesis section, literature review, experimental procedures materials results sections and finally conclusions sections with graphs or pictures depicting data collected during the experiment.
Font size for science fair project boards should be large enough for easy reading at a distance and should contrast with the background color, for instance white text against dark backgrounds makes the words stand out more. Visual items such as photos or charts should be used sparingly to avoid overwhelming the words on display; charts and graphs make data presentation more visually interesting for judges.