Measuring tools to use in your science fair project

Good experiments require measurements. Descriptions with words--like hot or cold, short or long, heavy or light, fast or slow--are not very useful. Descriptions with numbers are much better.

You have many simple things in your home that can be used to make measurements. Here’s a list of some of them:

• Measuring cup
• Clock
• Room thermometer
• Ruler or measuring tape
• Scale

And don’t forget one of the simplest and best of all ways to measure: Counting!

But what if your experiment asks people to describe something without numbers, like:

• How they feel after some event
• How much energy they have after doing something or hearing something or seeing something
• How well they can concentrate in different parts of the experiment

These are more difficult experiments, and your results will not be as easy to demonstrate (and you will need large numbers of trials). You may have better results if you ask people to “rate” their answers on a scale of one to ten, and give them examples of what a score of one or a score of ten could be described as. These results will still not be as good as those that can be measured directly, but they may make it easier for you to compare and present results in your display.