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Bio.chemistry. EE How do I choose an topic?


scepter

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I want to do my EE on either biology or chemistry, but I have trouble coming up with a proper topic because my areas of interest, genetics and neuroscience, seems to be a little too far out of my league. 

 

Has anyone ever done their EE in either one of these areas? Or has any suggestion for doable topics?

 

Thanks!

 

P.S. Does anyone know which category 'biochemistry' falls into? As in drugs and their receptor etc...

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Probably biology, but I have to warn you - IB does not take kindly to double-subject EEs, so be careful when you're coming up with topics.

 

I did my EE in English, so I'm not terribly qualified to answer regarding doable experiments. I'd suggest talking to your EE advisor and/or teacher for ideas of what students have done in the past, as well as taking a look at example EEs. Also, consider your resources. Are you near a research university or something similar that may be willing to let you borrow equipment and/or helpers? They're usually happy to foster any love of science in students and you'll be fawned over like crazy. That might make some experiments more feasible.

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Biochemistry in terms of drugs and receptors depends on what you're on about. Like saying that activation of B adrenoreceptors in the lungs causes relaxation of the airways and looking into physiological mechanisms would be Biology. Saying that the structure of adrenaline is a beta helix ring carbon whatever it is, and that you want to investigate the process of synthesis or some chemical fact about it on a molecular level = chemistry. It's like a macro and micro level of looking at things.

 

Drugs is a whole additional topic in HL Chemistry, or at least it was back when I did it. Assume it's still there!

 

As for coming up with a topic, YOU have to do that, we can't feed them to you. You're marked on it as a big aspect of your EE and everybody struggles coming up with something. The above person is right when they say pick either Biology or Chemistry and try to stick to something 100% that. One final thing to mention is that in this sort of field people get very excited about genes and cancer and medicine and blah, but you shouldn't forget you're just a school student who's basically been told to do a big experiment plus write-up. It's great if you can do the experiment on something you're interested in, but if what you're interested in does not lend itself to experimentation in a school lab because it would involve materials and concepts far beyond what you have access to... leave it. Basically it's great to be ambitious but you also have to be realistic, and lots of these more complex biological things are more or less beyond the bounds of what you can realistically expect to achieve in an EE short of ringing up a University lab.

 

Doing an EE which is more based on your dreams than actually focusing on hitting the EE criteria = doomed. Just to warn you in advance, that's where your focus should be.

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