Final Project

The final project for the Science Lab Elective is where the students get a chance to do some real science on their own, with little guidance, other than structure, from the instructor.  The students are asked to find a question, this can be something that they've always wondered about or better yet: a question about something that they love doing anyway.  They are then to do background research about their question: what can they find out about the situation online, through library research, or even through conventional wisdom.  Using this research, they either make a new, refined, question or make a hypothesis and use the research, and their understanding of scientific method, to design and run an experiment.  The students then make a poster detailing what they did, why they did it, and what their conclusions were.  On the day of the final exam, we hold a class symposium... in this case a presentation of posters and an explanation of what was studied, how, and what the conclusions were.  Below you can see a couple of examples of projects presented by the students.