Yearly Timeline
The best advice we can give you is to start early! Many students choose to start their research during the summer before the school year in which they want to compete.
Summer-October
Select the science fairs you want to enter and tailor your timeline according to your local fairs' deadlines. Also check what they regulations and paperwork they require for student projects.
Search for a topic that interests you and research what is already known about the subject.
October
From your research focus your topic to a specific problem and devise an experiment to test your problem.
December
Write your intended research plan including the hypothesis (the question you are testing) and procedure (how you intend to test your hypothesis).
Start your experimental trials and record your data and observations in a lab notebook.
February
Interpret what you found experimentally and draw conclusions.
Write up your research report and abstract.
March
Construct your science fair posterboard and prepare your presentation to the judges. Locals fairs typically start near the end on March. Good luck!
May
A few lucky winners at the local, regional, state and national levels get to advance to The International Science and Engineering Fair!
Sample Timeline of Competitions
This timeline is intended to give you an overall guide as to what stage of the Science Fair project/competition you should be in during each month.
General Timeline of Competitions Month Activities September Projects started October Projects completed November School Science Fairs December School Science Fairs January February March Regional Science Fairs April State Science Fairs May State Science Fairs June National Science Fairs July August