How can I think of my own original ideas?

Science fairs have been around for many many years, so chances are almost anything you think of has been done before. Fortunately, as long as you are creative with your ideas, and follow through on your experiment in a professional fashion, your project can still stand out.

In any case, to generate your own ideas, first of all think of a topic you enjoy. Perhaps it is an animal: cats, dogs, chickens, hamsters, insects. Perhaps it is a weather phenomenon like rain. Perhaps it is a vegetable or certain flower.

Now use one of these idea generating questions to create your own ideas.

What is the effect of ______ on _______ ?

Remember our "hot water" example on the scientific method page?

We could of started with, "What is the effect of hot water on ____ ? Now the question, effect on what...effect on what. In our other silly example we chose "effect on human skin". Not a real project possibility. But it illustrates the point.

We could have went with "What is the effect of hot water on the growth of tomatoe plants?" In this experiment we could find out whether a tomatoe plant grows better when watered with cold or hot water.

Also try:

To what extent does the ______ affect ______ ?

How about "To what extent does the color blue affect human memory?" We could test whether blue text is easier to remember than black text, or something like that.

Get the point? Hopefully this will make it simpler for you to generate your own original ideas.