Does EE titles for Science subjects have to be groundbreaking, original experiments?

[scstdnt]

I am doing Physics as my EE subject. I was wondering, given that I am doing an experiment, does it have to be a groundbreaking, brand new original idea?

[Sandwich]

I don't believe so-- that'd be near impossible!

Of course if you pick something everybody knows or is traditionally done in the classroom it might not come across as well as something which is hovering on the edge of the syllabus.

For science it's definitely not required that you do anything ground breaking, however!

[biochem]

not ground breaking, just original.

I have some prestigious IB teachers for Biology in my area, and they all won't approve topics that they can find on Google. that's the test. We had many people fail to do biology, because they couldn't come up with something original.

Certainty, if you find something ground breaking the reader will be extremely prone to read it carefully and you might get some points in some of the categories. This might be a fallacy on my part, but from what I have seen - the Math EE that a friend did that was ground breaking geometry got a really high score. It's a really big stretch to say that groundbreaking EEs earn higher scores. Perhaps what I am getting at is that, groundbreaking chemistry/bio/physics has a new angle to analyze science. In EE that I have been taught to stay away from like fuels, the reader can see so many things that could have been done better with the study. With groundbreaking measurements of quantitative data of something like migration or spore dispersal will get graded differently than someone who might do something so typical as the effects of acids on mushrooms.

Do you see what I mean? the reader already knows what the acid will do to the mushroom. right away, when they read the title they will expect you to connect the acid to the the allocation of nutrients in mushroom networks. Should you knot include that, this is where you might loose points. But if your topic is something like "Flora density effects on the dispersal of spores in _____ under moist conditions" then the reader will be prone to read with an open mind. This was an actual study I read for my TOK journal. I hope this helped.

[Tilia]

I think that you're more assessed on the how well you write the EE, not so much about the actual experiment, but of course it shouldn't be some lab you've done or something. As said above, do something original. Good luck!

[RelaxedDude]

It isnt required that you do an experiment for your physics extended essay

You could take a data based approachand extract raw data and manipulate and analyze it

Also, you could take a theoretical approach and develop "some qualitative description of some physical phenomenon, exercise a model, and make predictions about its behaviour and limitations"

[moneyfaery]

It isnt required that you do an experiment for your physics extended essay

You could take a data based approachand extract raw data and manipulate and analyze it

Also, you could take a theoretical approach and develop "some qualitative description of some physical phenomenon, exercise a model, and make predictions about its behaviour and limitations"

Theoretical approaches don't score as well as experimental approaches. Of course, you have the rare cases, but that's besides the fact. It's very difficult to have an 'original' take on data that's not even yours.

The 'google test', as biochem mentioned, is a very good way of determining if your topic is too common. If it's done and tried, the examiner won't be very impressed at all. The method doesn't have to be completely original as there are 'classic' approaches that you should use to limit error, but the overall method/research q should not be something that can be found in a published study.