The Group 4 Project is a student generated, student planned, student produced, interdisciplinary investigation. The Group 4
Project is a requirement for all diploma and certificate students enrolled in an IB science course. It is normally done during the grade 11 or 12 years so that all participants can draw on their comprehensive knowledge and lab experience to develop a meaningful investigation.
a. Student generated —The students choose the topic to be studied.
The topic needs to be narrow enough to be planned and studied in
10 hours of work and broad enough so that all disciplines of science can be included. b. Student planned —The students determine the research topic, state the problem, make a hypothesis, determine what specific investigations are going to be done within the research topic chosen, and plan the procedure, including determining materials and selecting variables.

c. Student produced —Group 4 students do the research, investigation, and the final write-up, presentation, or documentation.
d. Interdisciplinary —Students from all 3 science disciplines taught at OIS come together to investigate the topic chosen. Students plan to place their enrolled Group 4 subject as the emphasis of their final product, but are encouraged to work across the disciplines and include as much science as possible.
The Project consists of 5 main phases. During these initial discussions, group leaders generally emerge.

In topic selection, brainstorming is used to select a topic for investigation, keeping mind that the topic should be Fun, Feasible, and
Fit the Finances of those involved.
During the planning phase, open discussion is encouraged. At this time, the feasibility of an idea can be discussed.

• Procedure development is done in small groups after the investigation topic is selected. Cooperation within the group, between groups, and leadership are essential to stay on track and find reasonable, applicable methods of investigation.
During the investigation phase, all students participate fully, gather data, organize data for the group, and present the data for analysis.
• The 2006-2007 Project
The students chose “pollution” as their research topic. The development of feasible investigations was only limited to the the students’ imagination and creativity. After much discussion, some common threads began to be discovered.
It was decided that the following areas of investigation would be undertaken by the individual groups:

A. Effects of various water born pollutants on the respiration rate of aquatic organisms goldfish.

B. Air quality and the effects on the physiology of a human during exercise.

C. Relationships between CO
2 production, auto engine displacement, and RPM of engine operation.

• During the two days of investigation, students worked in groups and individually, as needed, to accomplish the tasks they had set for themselves.
• The resulting data was then collacted, analyzed and evaluated.
• Conclusions were drawn to try and establish relationships within a myriad of assorted data. The students ultimately reach the most valuable conclusion,
• “Real science is more time consuming, more fraught with possible errors, and more difficult than was originally supposed.”
• Students began the Group 4 Project on Wednesday with high hopes and expectations.

Some times there were consultations about last minute modifications to procedure.

The students soon discovered that while they can be useful tools for collecting data, the CBL systems can also be frustrating when they do not perform as planned.

Sometimes taking more readings still does not result in useable data.

Then an alternate method may need to be found. Is this what the IB and OIS student learning results mean when they say students should be adaptable?

Sometimes pollution research material just plain stink
.

Of course, goldfish can not always be counted on to cooperate by breathing at a constant rate or even for data to be accurately gathered.

However, goldfish might inadvertently provide you with a physics lesson in refraction.

Then again, goldfish might not be the only subjects of inadvertent refraction demonstrations.

One of the team members prepares for another 1.0 km run to test their hypothesis about air quality and physiology . At least this time he is running in the relatively clean air rather than the exhaust fume laden air.

Four minutes and a few seconds later, he is back and ready for the blood pressure and pulse checks.

Finding particulate pollution on the filter mask was probably the hardest part of data analysis for this team.

Of course, everyone just loves to do the lab reports!

And even though it was fun and they learned a lot, the students are glad when the Group 4 Project is finished.
One more hurdle on the way to their IB diploma. Next stop will be submitting the EE.