What is the control and the variable in a science fair project?

Answer 1

Controls are used to show that the test, equipment, procedure...are working properly. One would expect negative controls to give negative results and positive controls to give positive results. Controls used would depend on the experiment.

Answer 2

A research project is often structured in this way: 2 variables are of specific focus... The Independent Variable (IV) and the Dependent Variable (DV). The independent variable is the item that you are manipulating in the experiment, whereas the dependent variable is the item that you are measuring to determine an effect. For example: lets say you are studying the effect that sleep has on test scores. You would structure different levels of sleep (2, 4, 6, 8 hours per night) and that would be your IV. then you would examine the test scores that people received after the different levels of sleep and that would be your DV. The DV depends on the IV. In this same study you could set up a control group. The control group would not receive any special treatment (IV), most of the time you try to keep the control level constant or un-manipulated. That way you can determine if your variable is actually causing a difference in real life.

Answer 3

The control is a part of an experiment that you test with, but you don't do anything to. The variable is the one that you treat differently.

Answer 4

A control in a science experiment has to be the sample that remains constant throughout the entire experiment process.