The Extended Essay will be the capstone project to your IB experience, in which you get to demonstrate the research, writing and practical skills you have learned throughout your education thus far.

Learn more about the Extended Essay in general here:
To complete a good biology extended essay at ASM, you will need to design and execute a laboratory experiment that has never been done before, and thus advance the field of science. After collecting your results, you will then need to compile them into an essay format wherein you explain and reflect upon the design of your process, before discussing your results and concluding. This is an essay and not a lab report, but will require a good understanding of how to do both.

Note that you will be expected to finish your entire first draft by the end of the summer.

Three systematic biases

  1. EEs in science routinely score approximately lower than do EEs in most other subjects.
  2. Within biology, experimental EEs score significantly higher than research-based EEs.
  3. Within biology, EEs that are based on local resources and/or personal topics score higher than EEs that are more general and less personal.
                           From http://intranet.canacad.ac.jp:3445/BiologyIBHL1/5089

Choosing a biology EE topic

There are many great and interesting topics that you can choose as you begin to plan your research question in biology. However, most research-based EEs in this topic tend to be based in one of three main topics:
  1. Microbiology - Measuring how a factor affects the growth or longevity of bacteria. This often involves growing your own pure breeding strain, identifying it, and discovering how some regional or medicinal factor affects its growth or longevity. Naturally, your results here could have medical implication.
  2. Botany - These experiments tend to look at plant germination or growth. All around the world, plants are subject to many different and changing conditions, many of which have never been tested. This especially applies to local species or variables, but may be very important to agriculture and ecosystem health.
  3. Cell respiration and photosynthesis - Both these processes are vital to human life and have been used by societies around the world in different ways. Climate change and pollution effect photosynthesis, while human cultures have utilized fermentation to various ends (wine-making, tofu, tea) that could be examined in more detail.

That said, students have on occasion done EEs on other topics including human health, animal behavior and ecology. However, these have only been successful when they had a clear, feasible plan. Please speak to the G12 students or see the examples provided for more ideas:

EE grading

See here for full details.

Structure of your EE

Find below a possible outline for a science EE:
  • Introduction
    • Why did you choose this topic?
    • What is your research question?
    • Why is this topic relevant? Any relevant news articles or sources saying this?
  • Background
    • Explain the science of your question.
    • What other research has been done on this topic? What was found? What is left unanswered by this research?
  • Investigation / Justification of Method
    • Based on the research found, what procedure have you chosen?
    • How did you change the procedure to make it your own?
    • What are your expected results?
      • State your hypothesis
  • Procedure
    • Variables in a table
      • IV, DV and CV described in a table
    • Equipment
      • All equipment listed with bullet-points (quantity and uncertainty)
    • Method
      • Numbered steps of the method, including all variables, equipment and statistical tests used
  • Results
    • Summary of qualitative observations
      • Full observations in the appendices
    • Processed data table
      • Full raw data and sample equations in appendices
    • Graphs of processed data
    • Statistical test summary
      • With decision rules and results
      • Full sample calculations in appendices
  • Discussion
    • Results
      • Summarize your results in writing. Use statistical test results to help draw conclusions.
      • Explain your results scientifically. Why were some conditions better than others? Support this with research.
      • Do your results agree with your hypothesis? Explain.
      • How do your results compare with those you found in your research (see background)? Explain.
    • Evaluation
      • What were the possible sources of error in your lab and how could they have affected your results?
      • Are your results still valid? Explain.
  • Conclusion
    • What do your results mean for world? Do they have any significant impacts? Any relevant news articles?
    • What are future labs that might make a good extension to your research.
  • Works cited
  • Appendices