Guides and Forms

Following documents are created to help you make a successful application. Make sure to read all rules and regulations before you start your project, since there are specific forms to be filled for certain type of projects even before you start your research (Such as animal or human subject research). 

General Guides 

• Terra NYC Guide to ISEF Forms: All guidelines and forms as a single file

Guide for Quad Chart

• Quad Chart Instructions: A Quad Chart is a visual Abstract with the emphasis on brevity and bullets for the key points.

Guide for Abstract

• Abstract Instructions: The abstract is a summary of the study and is written after experimentation.

Guide for Project Video

• Project Video Instructions: The abstract is a summary of the study and is written after experimentation.

Guides for Specific Projects

• Human Participant Rules: For projects using Human Participants (surveys, data sets, involving actual human participant for physical activity or medical procedure etc.)
• Vertebrate Animal Rules: For projects using Vertebrate Animals (fish, birds, reptiles, mammals, etc.)
• Potentially Hazardous Biological Agents (PHBA) Rules: For projects using microorganisms (including bacteria, viruses, viroids, prions, rickettsia, fungi and parasites), recombinant DNA technologies or human or animal fresh/frozen tissues, blood, or body fluids, etc.
• Hazardous Chemicals, Activities, Devices (HCAD) Rules: For projects using DEA-controlled substances, prescriptions drugs, alcohol and tobacco products, firearms, explosives, radiation, lasers, controlled drones, etc.

What is safety paperwork?

Affiliated science and engineering fairs require documentation signed by responsible adults that the students and their research subjects are safe throughout the process. Your sponsor (a teacher, parent or mentor) must review all of the procedures BEFORE the student begins experimenting or building. Sometimes additional adults sign forms using their specific expertise to make sure you and your subjects are safe. Those adults’ signatures and dates prove that evaluation was completed.
The following forms MUST have approval dates that are PRIOR to experimentation: 1B (Approval Form), 2 (Qualified Scientist Form), 3 (Risk Assessment Form), 4 (Human Participants Form) or IRB from Regulated Research Institution, 5A or 5B  and/or IACUC (Vertebrate Animal Forms) 6A, and if necessary, IBC from Regulated Research Institution (Potentially Hazardous Biological Agents Form), 6B (Human and Vertebrate Animal Tissue Form)

You and your adult(s) use checklists to make sure you have all the required forms :
All Students: SRC paperwork 
All Students: Media Release 

How to Select the Project category?

Please review the listing of the Terra NYC categories and sub-categories before choosing the category that most accurately describes your project.Many projects could easily fit into more than one category. We highly recommend that you review the entire listing of the categories and sub-categories before choosing the category that most accurately describes your project. Ask yourself the following questions to help in the selection of a category:Who will be the most qualified to judge my project? What area of expertise is the most important for the judge to have? (For example, a medical background or an engineering background?)What is the emphasis of my project? What characteristic of my project is the most innovative, unique or important? (For example, is it the application in medicine or the engineering of the machine? Is it inserting the proper gene or the method of computer mapping to demonstrate the results?).