Each student must write an abstract to be displayed with the project. An abstract gives the summary of the project. The absract should reflect the essence of your project.Judges should gain a basic idea of the project after reading the abstract.

Details and discussions should not be included in the abstract. If the students desires, he/she may be put the detailed information a written research paper or given on the project exhibit board.

Participants at the I-SWEEEP are required to use the online Abstract Form to submit their abstract.

The Parts of Abstract

Purpose of the Experiment

· An introductory statement of the reason for choosing and doing this topic.
· A statement of the problem or hypothesis being studied.

Procedures Used

· A summarization of the key points and an overview of how the investigation was conducted.
· Do not give details about the materials used.

Observation/Data/Results

· This section should provide key results that lead directly to drawn the conclusions
· It should not give too many details and numerical values about the results.

Conclusions

· Conclusions should be described briefly.
· State some applications and extensions of the research project.

An abstract should not include a bibliography.

Sample Abstract

Phytoremediation of Indian Mustard Plants

Ashley Ajala
Harmony Science Academy, Houston, TX

---

Phytoremediation is the use of green plants to remove contaminants from water or soil. This solar-driven technology, which is cost effective and aesthetically pleasing, works on the principle that plants naturally take up elements and other substances from soil and water and accumulate.This experiment looked at the effects of zinc on the Indian Mustard Seed and how good of a hyper- accumulator of zinc the plant species is.

The procedure that was followed involved growing the mustard seed plants on paper towels in cups. 50 mL of volume was marked off on these cups. Then, zinc chloride solutions and plant nutrients were added in each of the cups. Each week, 5 mL samples were taken from each of the six cups. All the samples were later analyzed using visible spectroscopy.

 

 Various physical characteristics of the plants were also monitored during the experiment, such as: the number of leaves on the plants, the color of the leaves, the height of the plants, and the amount of water added to the cups each day.

 

Overall, the experiment suggested that a good concentration for this project would be somewhere between 0 mg/L to 100 mg/L of zinc. This is because the plants stopped growing in the 100 mg/L concentration; therefore anything higher would just result in dead plants. A concentration of zinc between 0-100mg/L would allow these plants to grow relatively healthy and also be effectively used for the process of phytoremediation.