EE: Writing about Veterinary Medicine

[Horserider47yt]

This is my first year in IB. I would like to write my extended essay over the summer, so I can be prepared for next year. However I'm having trouble figuring out what exactly to write about. I was planning to put this in the topic of biology because my mentor said an experiment was not required for it. Basically my mentor told me that I can do a big lit review. But what exactly should I write about. I definatley want to veterinary medicine but have no idea what my question should be. I appreciate any ideas. Thanks!

[Emmi]

I would be extremely careful about doing a literature review. Science extended essays that do not have an experimental component tend to do very poorly and tend to not get any higher than a D on average. Even if the essay is otherwise written well, people who choose to do this often miss what is required of them (the guide doesn't really give a lot of information about approaching an EE this way) and score poorly as a result.

Long story short: you need an experiment. Don't do an EE based on evaluating scientific literature if you want to do well.

Now we really can't give you topics, that is your job to come up with one. Ideally whatever topic you come up with you can devise an experiment for. Your experiment doesn't have to be too complicated, but it should be a little more in depth than something you'd do for an IA. To come up with possible topics, I strongly urge you to read the EE guide under the biology section not only to see what is required if you but also to see what kinds of topics are allowed (basically nothing involving drawing blood or growing bacteria near body temperature, and animal testing is usually a slippery slope best avoided). You can also try googling around on the Internet to see examples of past biology EEs and see what kinds of topics they did. Then, after doing that and thinking of what interests you in biology, you should be able to start coming up with a couple ideas.