EPQ Subject related to Biology?

As it says above ^^

Anyone got any ideas, I got a few but wondering if there are any other better ideas?

Any help would be appreciated!

Reply 1

dragonkeeper999

I did mine on the optimisation of the polymerase chain reaction and it's applications in forensic and clinical science. I know other people who experimented to find the effect of alcohol or vitamins on fruit flies behaviour and how this research could be applied to human behaviour. Instead of doing experiments, you could just research an area of biology you find particularly interesting - just make sure you can discuss different sides of an argument (e.g. if you wanted to answer 'Is Darwin's theory the only option') or analyse results (e.g. if you used data collected from another scientist - make sure you don't just copy their conclusions though!). Most of the marks are actually for your planning, research, presentation and evaluation of your project - I think only 30% is the actual essay - so make sure you work hard on these sections too.

Reply 2

lolface32

Original post by dragonkeeper999

appreciate it! Really helped in understanding

If you don't mind me asking, what kind of sources did you use and how did you carry out research?

Reply 3

dragonkeeper999

Original post by lolface32

appreciate it! Really helped in understanding

If you don't mind me asking, what kind of sources did you use and how did you carry out research?

that's ok

I used lots of scientific papers as sources - use Google Scholar to search for such papers. They are so much more reliable and often include the original data which you can analyse again yourself to confirm their conclusions/ investigate further trends. I also used some background information on the topic from university websites and information from news websites/ magazines such as the New Scientist where relevant.
I started by just Googling 'PCR' but this came up with so much information, most of which wasn't relevant or reliable, and so switched to using Google Scholar, CREDO reference, INTUTE and BUBL for finding suitable online sources. I also found some books on the topic from my local library (you can also order them from other libraries in the area) and interviewed a few scientists (who I had previously done work experience with, if you don't know any scientists your science teacher is probably a good source if they know a lot on the topic, but if you can find a scientist who specialises in the area then that's the best - perhaps contact a local university).
When you do your research, fill out a table showing all the sources you looked at (including the web address/ ISBN number for books - basically write out the source as you would reference it using the Harvard referencing system/ whatever reference system you are using in your essay), how reliable you think they are, which sources they agree with, what kind of information you used them for (data/ background info/ opinions/ news etc.). This is important to show that you have been considering the reliability and accuracy of the information. You might want to list a few sources you considered using but then decided not to because you didn't think the site was reliable - Wikipedia's a good one to use for this.