I've changed my extended essay topic and i need advice!

[HutchDan]

People have been invaluable on this site! I've come up with a topic which seems very viable and interesting and i would like input before i'm overly confident!

So basically i had a theoretical science essay, i though it was worth the risk changing considering that i would probably fail anyway.

So i thought i would try seeing how different types of honey ( frusctose corn syrup, normal honey, varting strengths of manuka honey) would affect bacterial growth in e coli ( any suggestions for a bacterium i should use would be appreciated) There have been numerous claims on the antibacterial properties of manuka honey especially, but no real solid research.

The experiment itself seems quite straightforward, i would apply each substance at different stages of growth ect. I don't think i would need overly complex equipment, but as you know its hard to judge at this stage.

It pains me to say but the first draft is due in September, and the deadline is in October.... but i've hear the ib deadline is actually sometime in January.

I would just get my head down and power through, but i don't know where i would get a lab, and i dont know how the IBO would feel about me doing it in my back garden ( ha!)

but these are problems i can solve no doubt, what is your advice on the matter? What would you do in my position?

My supervisor isn't replying at all in the summer!

[Emmi]

The EE graders don't expect every student to have big fancy science labs to perform their EEs in. Almost everyone in my graduating class who did a science EE at my school did theirs at school in one of the classrooms or at home if necessary. So as long as you can control the conditions in your garden (although I recommend doing it inside for obvious reasons) you can really do it anywhere.

Since your draft is due in September, you've still got a month and a half to work. You can probably gather all of your materials and come up with a viable procedure in about a week's time, and that gives you just over a month to work. Figure out how much time it takes to run one trial of your experiment, based on how you want to measure your data. You'll want a few trials, so ideally come up with one that doesn't take too long to run (maybe a week/week and a half long trial is best). You can write up most of your EE (the introduction, procedure, hypothesis sections) while you're waiting on results, just leaving blanks in your EE for filling in the data once you've obtained and analyzed it. That way you're not wasting time. If you work hard and get your experiments done, you should have no problem handing it in during October.

Good luck