Final Project Guidelines

This project counts for 100 points. You should start planning the project if you haven't done so already. You must have the basic design of your project approved by your instructor; he or she will give you the date by which you obtain approval. The project could be an experiment that tests a product or a claim, or tests a specific hypothesis. Water quality projects are also acceptable.

For experimental projects, your final report should consist of four sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion.

The Introduction should set up the project; it should state why the project interests you and why it is worthwhile. It should provide enough background information (from credible sources) to provide the reader with a good foundation for understanding the project.

The Methods should describe what you did to gather your data and how you went about it. It should provide enough detail so that someone could replicate your project. This section, like all others, should be in paragraph form. You must be able to convince the reader that you used good techniques and unbiased sampling methods.

The Results section reports your findings. Though it should be in paragraph form, it should also contain descriptive statistics (if appropriate), tables of data (if appropriate), graphs (if appropriate), and results of statistical tests (if appropriate).

The Discussion section interprets the results. It makes conclusions about your findings and discusses the significance of what you have learned. This is also where you discuss your findings relative to other studies that have been conducted.

The Reference section lists all of your sources of information. This should be the final page of your report.

The last day(s) of class will be devoted to oral presentations of projects. The presentations will count 25% of the project grade. You will be expected to present your project as an MS PowerPoint presentation. We will help you prepare the final form of your presentation, but we can only do so if your project is completed far enough in advance so that we will have time to prepare.

We assume that you will spend a good deal of time on your project, so accordingly we will provide some class time so we can work with you on these projects. We will also provide our assistance outside of class time, if you need it.