Academic Fair: Interests and Inquiries: Collections-based Projects

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Collections-Based Projects

Sometimes the best way to answer a question is to:

Study the objects in an existing collection
Make a new collection
Do library, Web, or interview research about the objects in a collection

Museum collections are often used for these types of research. If your child has a collection, she or he may use it to develop a project for the Academic Fair.

The key step will be to develop a question that can be answered by studying the collection. For instance, your child may be interested in Pokémon cards -- the challenge will be to develop an inquiry or research question that can be answered using that collection.

Once you have a question and a collection, there are many ways you can present your findings at the fair.

	This student combined a collection of corals from Florida with his collection of plastic animals. He made a model of a coral reef to answer his questions about how reefs are put together.

We've assembled a list of websites about collections and collections-based research. Go here to learn more.

Go here to learn more about developing a question

Return to the Types of Projects page.