Salt Lake Valley Science and Engineering Fair

Research Categories

Elementary Division Project Categories

• Behavioral & Social Sciences
• Biology & Biochemistry
• Chemistry
• Energy & Transportation
• Engineering & Computer Science
• Environmental Sciences
• Medicine & Health Sciences
• Physics, Astronomy & Math
• Plant & Earth Sciences

Junior & Senior Division Project Categories

Also review the Intel ISEF Categories and Subcategories if you’d like.

• Animal Sciences
• Behavioral & Social Sciences
• Biochemistry
• Cellular & Molecular Biology
• Chemistry
• Computer Science
• Earth & Planetary Science
• Energy & Transportation
• Engineering: Electrical & Mechanical
• Engineering: Materials & Civil Engineering
• Environmental Management
• Environmental Sciences
• Mathematical Sciences
• Medicine & Health Sciences
• Microbiology
• Physics & Astronomy
• Plant Sciences

Expanded Category Descriptions

Animal Sciences

• The study of an organism from an egg to birth or hatching.
• The science of the interactions and relationships among animals and animals and plants with their environments.
• The study and practice of breeding and raising livestock.
• The study of the nature of animal disease and its causes, processes, development, and consequences.
• The study of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of living organisms.

Behavioral & Social Sciences

• The study and treatment of emotional or behavioral disorders.
• The study of cognition, the mental processes that underlie behavior, including thinking, deciding, reasoning, and to some extent motivation and emotion.
• The study of the biological and physiological basis of behavior.
• The study of human social behavior, especially the study of the origins, organization, institutions, and development of human society.

Biochemistry

• The study of the chemical processes of living organisms.
• The study of the biochemical modification of chemical compounds in living organisms and cells.
• The study of the structures and physical properties of biological molecules, including proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and nucleic acids; the mechanisms of enzyme action.

Cellular & Molecular Biology

• The study of the organization and functioning of the individual cell.
• The study of molecular genetics focusing on the structure and function of genes at a molecular level.
• The study of the structure and function of the immune system, innate and acquired immunity, and laboratory techniques involving the interaction of antigens with antibodies.
• The study of biology at the molecular level between the various systems of a cell, including the interrelationships of DNA, RNA and protein synthesis and learning how these interactions are regulated.

Chemistry

• The science and art of determining composition of materials in terms of the elements and compounds that they contain.
• The science of the composition, structure, properties, and reactions of matter, especially of atomic and molecular systems.
• The branch of chemistry that deals with reactions and properties of all chemical elements and their compounds, excluding hydrocarbons but usually including carbides and other simple carbon compounds
• The study of the hydrocarbons and their derivatives, both naturally occurring and synthetic.
• Physical chemistry is concerned with the physical properties of materials, such as their electrical and magnetic behavior and their interaction with electromagnetic fields.

Computer Science

• The study of algorithms and databases. Software developed to manage any form of data including text, images, sound and video.
• The study of the ability of a computer or other machine to perform those activities that are normally thought to require intelligence, such as solving problems, discriminating among objects, and/or responding to voice commands.
• The study of systems that transmits any combination of voice, video, and/or data among users.
• The study of the use of computers to perform research in other fields, such as computer simulations. Also includes the study of computer graphics or the transfer of pictorial data into and out of a computer by various means (analog-to-digital, optical scanning, etc).
• The study of software designed to control the hardware of a specific data processing system in order to allow users and application programs to make use of it.

Earth & Planetary Science

• The study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecasting.
• The study of the chemical composition of the earth and other planets, chemical processes and reactions that govern the composition of rocks and soils.
• The study of life in the geologic past as recorded by fossil remains.
• Branch of geology in which the principles and practices of physics are used to study the earth and its environment.
• The study of planets or planetary systems and the solar system.
• The study of the earth's structural features as related to plate structure, plate movement, volcanism, etc.

Engineering: Electrical & Mechanical

• The branch of engineering that deals with the technology of electricity, especially the design and application of circuitry and equipment for power generation and distribution, machine control, and communications.
• The branch of engineering that encompasses the generation and application of heat and mechanical power and the design, production, and use of machines and tools.
• The science or study of the technology associated with the design, fabrication, theory, and application of robots and of general purpose, programmable machine systems.
• Thermodynamics involves the physics of the relationships and conversions between heat and other forms of energy. Solar is the technology of obtaining usable energy from the light of the sun.

Engineering: Materials & Bioengineering

• Involves the application of engineering principles to the fields of biology and medicine, as in the development of aids or replacements for defective or missing body organs; the development and manufacture of prostheses, medical devices, diagnostic devices, drugs and other therapies as well as the application of engineering principles to basic biological science problems.
• Deals with the design, construction, and operation of plants and machinery for making such products as acids, dyes, drugs, plastics, and synthetic rubber by adapting the chemical reactions discovered by the laboratory chemist to large-scale production.
• Includes the planning, designing, construction, and maintenance of structures and public works, such as bridges or dams, roads, water supply, sewer, flood control and, traffic.
• Concerned with efficient production of industrial goods as affected by elements such as plant and procedural design, the management of materials and energy, and the integration of workers within the overall system. The industrial engineer designs methods, not machinery.
• A multidisciplinary field relating the performance and function of matter in any and all applications to its micro, nano, and atomic structure, and vice versa. It often involves the study of the characteristics and uses of various materials, such as metals, ceramics, and plastics and their potential engineering applications.

Energy & Transportation

• The design of aircraft and space vehicles and the direction of the technical phases of their manufacture and operation.
• Any method of powering an engine that does not involve petroleum (oil). Some alternative fuels are electricity, hythane, hydrogen, natural gas, and wood.
• Energy from a hydrocarbon deposit, such as petroleum, coal, or natural gas, derived from living matter of a previous geologic time and used for fuel.
• Engineering of vehicles that operate using energy other than from fossil fuel.
• Renewable energy sources capture their energy from existing flows of energy, from on-going natural processes such as sunshine, wind, flowing water, biological processes, and geothermal heat flows.

Environmental Management

• Biological remediation of environmental problems using plants. The use of biological agents, such as bacteria or plants, to remove or neutralize contaminants, as in polluted soil or water. Includes phytoremediation, constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment, biodegradation, etc.
• The integration of ecological, economic, and social principles to manage biological and physical systems in a manner that safeguards the long-term ecological sustainability, natural diversity, and productivity of the landscape. An ecological approach to managing the environment.
• The development of processes and infrastructure for the supply of water, the disposal of waste, and the control of pollution. Includes alternative engineering methodologies to meet society's needs in an environmentally sound and sustainable manner.
• A landscape approach to sustainable resource management, coastal management, biological diversity management, land use planning, or forest succession management. It often includes a resource planning component as well as implementation methodologies.
• The extraction and reuse of useful substances from discarded items, garbage, or waste. The process of managing, and disposing of, wastes and hazardous substances through methodologies such as landfills, sewage treatment, composting, waste reduction, etc.

Environmental Sciences

• The study of contamination of the air by such things as noxious gases, elements, minerals, chemicals, solid and liquid matter (particulates), etc. Air pollution is the study of such contaminates in concentrations that endanger the health of humans, plants, and/or animals.
• The study of contamination of the soil by such things as noxious elements, minerals, chemicals, solids, liquids, etc. Soil contamination is the study of such contaminates in concentrations that endanger the health of humans, plants, and/or animals.
• The study of contamination of the water by such things as noxious elements, minerals, chemicals, solids, etc.

Mathematical Sciences

• The study of solutions of one or several algebraic equations, involving the polynomial functions of one or several variables. This includes the study of arithmetic and number theory.
• The study of mathematical analysis involves the use of infinite processes. The basic branch of analysis is calculus. The general problem of measuring lengths, areas, volumes, and other quantities as limits by means of approximating polygonal figures leads to the integral calculus.
• Branch of mathematics that concerns itself with the mathematical techniques typically used in the application of mathematical knowledge to other domains.
• The study of the shape, size, and other properties of figures and the nature of space.
• Mathematical study of phenomena characterized by randomness or uncertainty and the study of statistical tools used to analyze, interpret and present data.

Medicine & Health Sciences

• The act or process of identifying or determining the nature and cause of a disease or injury through evaluation of patient history, examination, and review of laboratory data.
• The study of the causes, distribution, and control of disease in populations.
• The study of heredity, especially the mechanisms of hereditary transmission and the variation of inherited traits among similar or related organisms.
• The study of diseases at the molecular level.
• The science of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of normal tissues or organs. Pathophysiology is the study of the disturbance of normal mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions that a disease causes, or that which causes the disease.

Microbiology

• The study of methods of destroying or inhibiting the growth of bacteria or other micro-organisms.
• The study of the anatomy, physiology of bacteria and the diseases they cause.
• The study of genes, heredity and variations of microorganisms.
• The study the anatomy, physiology of viruses and the diseases they cause.

Physics & Astronomy

• The study of matter-matter and light-matter interactions on the scale of single atoms or structures containing a few atoms.
• The study of matter in outer space, especially the positions, dimensions, distribution, motion, composition, energy, and evolution of celestial bodies and phenomena.
• The study of the physics of biological processes.
• Magnetics is the study of magnets and their effects; electromagnetics is the physics of electricity and magnetism.
• study of the components, structure, and behavior of the nucleus of the atom. It is especially concerned with the nature of matter and with nuclear energy.
• The study of light and vision, chiefly the generation, propagation, and detection of electromagnetic radiation having wavelengths greater than x-rays and shorter than microwaves.
• Theoretical physics employs mathematical models and abstractions rather than experimental processes. Theoretical or computation astronomy uses these methods in the study of astronomical objects or phenomena.

Plant Sciences

• The application of soil and plant sciences to land management and crop production. Includes soil management, tillage, crop rotation, breeding, weed control, and climate related to crop production.
• The study of plant life from egg to germination.
• The science of the interactions and relationships between plants and plants and animals within their environment.
• The study of the process by which plants convert water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates, using sunlight as the source of energy with the aid of chlorophyll.
• The study of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of living organisms/plants.
• The study of genetic composition of populations in order to understand the evolutionary forces that select for particular genes.
• Systematic classification of organisms and the evolutionary relationships among them; taxonomy.