It happens every year. Students wait until the last minute to work on their science fair projects and before they know it, the project is due tomorrow. If this is the position you have found yourself in do not panic yet. As long as you focus your efforts and get down to work right now, you can pull a science fair project together in less than 24 hours.

Step #1 - Evaluate Your Options

The first step is to see what you have to work with right now. If you have not started on your project then go through your old science reports to see if you have enough information to work with to develop a project. You will also want to evaluate what raw materials you have to experiment with and how much time you have available to work on your project.

Step #2 - Develop a Topic and Hypothesis

The next step is to develop your science fair project topic. A quick way to select a topic is to work with research that you have all ready conducted or topics that you all ready know a lot about. Once you have a topic selected you will want to develop a hypothesis about that topic. The hypothesis is just a prediction of what will happen if a variable related to your topic is manipulated. For example, a hypothesis about human behavior is that as the room temperature goes up moods becomes more negative.

Step #3 - Develop Your Experiment

Since you are short on time you need to find a way to collect data quickly. Try to set up an experiment that will take at most two hours to complete. Behavior and observational experiments work great for this type of time crunch. However, you can also produce chemical experiments and physics experiments. Use whatever makes sense for your topic and hypothesis.

Step #4 - Collect Data

The next step is to collect data by running your experiment. As you collect your data think about how to analyze it and how your findings will either support or negate your hypothesis.

Step #5 - Write Your Report

The report that is tied to your science fair project is going to help you identify all the steps you still need to take to complete your project. The introduction will basically just be a recap of your topic and hypothesis. The background section will be a summary of the research that you did on your topic. Next you will need to describe your experiment methodology. Then you will detail your data and its analysis. Finally you will draw your conclusions.

Step #6 - Create a Display Board

The final step is to create your display board. Think of this display board as a visual summary of your written report. Create at least one panel for each section in your report. Utilize graphs and other visual elements that describe your data and findings. You can also create visual elements for your display board using a digital camera and taking pictures of your experiment's set-up and your findings.