Group 4 - Experiment

[gotti]

I'm working on my IB group 4 project right now from the Biological aspect. We're looking at water pollution and my subtopic is natural ways of treating waste water. Even though this is a very interesting topic, I couldn't do an experiment. My teacher suggested that I just make a model of some water purification method using plants and the rest of my project can be a sort of survey based on examples where people used plants to purify water.

My question is, can I do this? I don't have a real experiment, I just do a survey to compare and evaluate other people's case studies. Plus make a model. Does the lack of an actual experiment make my project less credible? Or would I be marked down?

Also who grades the Group 4 project?

Thank!

[ak18]

You wouldn't necessarily be marked down. Although you should probably check with your bio teacher again and your IB coordinator since they would have the guidelines for g4.

Or what you could do is to try a simple experiment if you can find any online (replicate them) and then find ways to link it to real life. If you do this in addition to the model your g4 would be really strong.

g4 is graded internally as well as externally. The examiners look at the grade given by the teacher for whichever science subject you did your g4 in.

oh and hi gotti

[gotti]

Thanks for the thorough response Sher Khan..
I checked a few other forums and apparently a couple of other people have done a purely research based project and they were fine. So I guess I'm ok as of now. But I'd still appreciate if someone could confirm this.

AND, could you elaborate on what you mean externally marked? If I present my project to my school, how does the IB grade it again? Do they just look at what grade I got and leave it at that?

[ak18]

i couldn't resist Well if on other forums they've done purely research based ones, then you should be fine. You might want to check how much research and insight they used though. That should help.

Yeah basically the examiners look over it again. The grade that you have been given (the teachers have the marksheet in which they write their comments and everything) and you need to give them a printout of your powerpoint or whatever you're doing, just in case. Basically its like your language orals. The teacher grades them, but the examiner goes over it again.