In our last science project hint, you got the bad news that a cash budget is important. But that isn’t the only budget you need (more bad news!) GROAN! ANOTHER BUDGET?! ’Fraid so. But this one doesn’t involve cash, it involves time! You need to budget time in two ways before you start your science fair project. First, you’ve go to compare how much time you have with how much time the project you want to do will take. Let’s say you’ve left your project to the last minute (even if you ‘re reading this now, that’s no guarantee you’ll actually start for a few more months. It’s amazing how easy it is to put a science fair project off, and off, and off a little longer still!) So if you’ve only got a few weeks to do your project, it doesn’t make sense choose one that takes two months. As much as you may want to, it’s very hard to rush scientific experiments. You won’t get all the data you need and your experiment will come across as poorly done. It’s better to pick an experiment that takes about half the time you have left. If you have two weeks left and you choose an experiment that takes one week, you’ll have lots of time to make changes if you need to and to finish your display and report. If your experiment finishes the night before the project is due, you will be really whooped, trust me!

Okay, now that you’ve suffered through that long list of things not to do, let’s quickly go over a few things you should do! Once you find a project you like, set up a timeline on paper. A timeline is a table that shows when you plan to do certain things. For example, you might start the list with “research.” This could take from week 1 to week 3. The more you know about your subject early on, the better. So put research early in the timeline. This is also important in case you can’t find much information on your subject. This way you’ll have time to change topics if you have to. The same goes for “rounding up materials and equipment” in week 3. You’ll need to be sure you can get everything you need to do your project early on as well. Try to make a timeline yourself. If you need help, the introductory section to each JSP science project booklet takes you through the steps you need to complete. You can use this as a guide to create your own timeline!