Science Fair Project gone awry...HELP!

[Sharon in SC]

15yo dd's science fair project has run amuck. I'll spare you the details. We are on a short stick timewise and I wonder if anyone can help us brainstorm a terrific science fair project pronto?!?!?! :(

[Jane in NC]

15yo dd's science fair project has run amuck. I'll spare you the details. We are on a short stick timewise and I wonder if anyone can help us brainstorm a terrific science fair project pronto?!?!?! :(

My son once had a science fair project run amuck which we turned into an alternative project. Science often works this way. Alter a parameter slightly, get the unexpected, then try to explain what happened. What did she learn in the process?

[Sharon in SC]

That's what we've tried to do (going to a Plan B with the initial idea) but, so far, we've come up empty. :-{

[snickelfritz]

nt

[Sharon in SC]

Basically, our entire premise was based on the assumption that our well water is hard. (The previous owners of our home had a water softener on the house and, well, we just assumed they invested in that because the house had hard water). Well, you know what they say about assuming....

We took the softener off the house and went with a catalox filter that removes hydrogen sulfur, iron, and manganese. For the project, we wanted to test the effect of iron removal on the hardness of the water. With our assumption that the well water is hard to begin with, we aimed to alternate the frequency of backwashing with the catalox thereby causing the amount of iron removed to fluctuate and, thus, if our hypotheses is true, causing the hardness of the water to fluctuate proportionately. Alas, our well water is SOFT! Straight out of the well it registered ZERO for hardness.

Our project is a bust and we have until next weekend to come up with something.

Thanks for asking,
Sharon

[Jean in Newcastle]

Do you know anyone with hard water? Could you do your experiment on their water?

[Sharon in SC]

Thanks for trying to help me think outside the box. The problem is - we were going to make adjustments to the catalox filter on *our* house to assess the effect of removing iron on the hardness of water. Except that we could find someone with hard water *and* a catalaox filter who just also happened to be willing to let us monkey around with their filter, we're bust. ;-{

[Mama Lynx]

Why is it a bust? I'd write the whole thing up, show your tests, etc., and then your conclusions. So you ended up with a different conclusion than you thought - your hypothesis didn't pan out. This happens in science all the time.

Does a project have to successfully confirm your hypothesis to be a good science fair project? We've never participated in one, so I honestly don't know. But this seems to me to be a fine opportunity to show people how, well, sometimes it just doesn't go like you expect it to. And that's science, too.

[Sharon in SC]

Thanks. You've confirmed the direction we've decided to take which is exactly what you said - finish the study, write it up, and call it a wrap. :-}