Step 5: Hypothesis
A hypothesis is your guess about the answer to your project question. This is not a “wild” guess. You need to have a good reason for the hypothesis you state.
Please know that I made up all of the following hypothesis. They may or may not be true. They are examples for you to use in stating your own hypothesis.
Example:
Project Questions
1. If a drop of water is placed on a surface, what effect would the type of surface have on the water wetting the surface?
Hypothesis: Since water wets glass but doesn’t wet an oily surface, water should wet anything that is not oily.
2. If a drop of water is placed on a surface, what effect would the type of water have on the water wetting the surface?
Hypothesis: Water softeners for a dishwasher is suppose to make water flow off of the dishes. Spots are due to water beading on the dishes. So, the softer the water, tap or bottled, the better able it is to wet any surface.
3. If a drop of a water solution is placed on a surface, what effect would the type of solute have on the water wetting the surface?
Hypothesis: Stuff in the air dissolved in rain, but the drop bead up on my dad’s car. The type of solute (stuff dissolved in water) doesn’t affect how the water solution wets surfaces.
4. If a drop of a water solution is placed on a surface, what effect would the concentration of the solution have on the water wetting the surface?
Hypothesis: I did an experiment that demonstrated that only a tiny bit of soap decreases the surface tension of water. While a solute should make water wet surfaces better, the amount of soap doesn’t change the result.
Step 6: Experiment
Once you decide on your science fair project question and have stated your hypothesis, your next step is to experiment. Your experiment is to be designed so that you are testing your hypothesis. In other words, you want to experimentally determine if your guess is correct.
For example, I am going to choose the following question and hypothesis:
1. If a drop of water is placed on a surface, what effect would the type of surface have on the water wetting the surface?
Hypothesis: Since water wets glass but doesn’t wet an oily surface, water should wet anything that is not oily.
For clues about an experiment to test the hypothesis, see STEP 6: EXPERIMENT