Journal of student research abstracts volume IX

The Journal of Student Research Abstracts is published yearly on or about May 1 by Pearson Education. The journal is intended to provide students and teachers with: (1) a vehicle to honor young investigators and their teachers by showcasing their work, motivating them to continue their involvement in research science, (2) a sourcebook for both students and teachers who are looking for ideas for research projects, (3) a volume to disseminate student research discoveries, and (4) an exercise in analysis of good science versus science that could be improved. Many abstracts included in the journal demonstrate good science, i.e., clear introductions describing hypothesis to be tested, methods, results and conclusion statements, and most important, sufficient numbers of appropriate control and experimental samples and repetitions of experiments. Other abstracts do not display one or more of the principles of good science. Students and teachers, therefore, could use these abstracts to learn about the right and wrong ways to approach scientific experiments. For this reason, we do not eliminate abstracts that do not demonstrate perfect science. The editor, however, reserves the right not to publish abstracts that are seriously flawed. Those abstracts were deleted from this issue. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations are those of the individual authors of the abstracts presented in the journal, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation, the other sponsoring agencies, the university or the journal staff