SUMMARY:
  • EE takes two steps further by 1) diving deeper into more complex knowledge and 2) applying it in areas that are not previously investigated. 

Personal Stories
Jiwoo’s Chem EE:
I loved learning about medicine, so I started reading the manual of medicines. That reminded me of a TV series that taught me not to take medicine with drinks other than water, because otherwise, adverse food-drug interaction would happen. It was interesting because I’ve heard about it often whenever I am prescribed drugs,  but didn’t really know how it works. I started off researching the different types and examples of food-drug interaction. A medicine called ‘metformin’ caught my attention because it was widely used in China for diabetic patients, but there wasn’t much information on what drinks to avoid. I thought that Chinese’ favourite drink, tea, might interact with medicine. But since tea is a mixture, I needed to focus on one chemical of tea. I chose to focus on a molecule called Epigallocatechin Gallate, a unique molecule found in tea. 

I thought that the research would take the longest, but for me the experiment was a bigger hurdle. Lack of equipment (especially pharmaceutic-related equipment isn’t really easily found in a typical high school lab), having to learn how to code for a chemical reaction simulation, so many trials and errors… took a lot of time. But it was a valuable experience to get to sneak a peak on what the real science world is like. Enjoyed it too, and it became a great topic for my TEDx Talk. 


Miguel’s ESS EE:
At first, I thought I would be doing an EE in psychology but after a session with the EE teacher on the ESS(I don’t take ESS, I was just seeing what others subjects I could so) I was very interested and I realized I had a very interesting dataset that I had access to it. Also, I am interested in environmental science so I think it worked out really well. 
In year 11, I went on a trip to Indonesia with Operation Wallacea, an organization where students work with real scientists that publish papers, and collect data in different countries. (Highly recommend it, go to the website and check them out, such a unique experience and I don’t regret it.) One of the perks of the trip was that I have access to the data I helped collect for that year and they provide students with data for their EEs, students can get their data collected there on the trip(website explains it better. So I used it, built a question around the data which I had and came up with ecological stability in Indonesia in the areas where my data was from and analyzed it. But my case was a bit different as I used secondary data(it was not all collected by me) so I get marked differently from primary data(experiment).


Tips
1)    General tips
  • Start your EE early (make your own schedule or make it ahead of what the school assigns you). 
    • Make the schedule flexible and full of time because you will encounter unexpected situations (wrong experiment, lacking equipment at school, you have to change something really big etc.) 
    • EE often requires a long time for experiments/writing up- which is hard to manage with IB, because of the amount of other work and crazy schedules. (one week you might just have some homework, the other week you might be bombarded with 3 unit tests) and it gets busy and busy as you progress through the year, so work on it when you are chill (like holidays, or early in the year). - Basically if your week looks empty, take the time to relax but also get on your EE. 
  • Try to 1-up your schedule(eg. In 2 week, I need to write 500 more words, but I will write 1000) just in case of any setbacks due to bad schedules.
  • Think of the teacher you want to have as a supervisor, and best to ask for help early. (usually, teachers take 3 students for EE each year, so better to ask fast!) 
  • Save all of your citations in a document or anywhere along with the information you are using from it so you won’t put useless citations, IB does like citations that do not actually appear in the body.
  • https://blog.prepscholar.com/complete-guide-to-ib-extended-essay-tips-grading-guideline-and-sample-essays
  • First, before anything else, read some EE by other students, in your subject area or even in others(by the way, EEs now do not need abstracts)
  • It is possible to do EE in a subject that you are not taking. HOWEVER you need a teacher who is capable of teaching that subject to supervise you.
 
2)    How to choose the topics.
  • When you think about topics, don’t do it for the sake of EE, but for the sake of satisfying your curiosity. In other words, ask yourself ‘what about the world can I learn more of?’ instead of ‘what would be the best topic for your EE? 
    • The former question makes your line of thought more flexible, open, less stressful, and it really helps you settle down to your topic. Read books about science, ask about how things around you work, do a couple of internet research, and if any topic is interesting to you, take time thinking about the physics behind it. 
      • This makes for good personal engagement for your introduction too.
    • Takes notes on things that interest you, from the textbook or your own reading. 
    • Maybe watch Scishow for cool facts, maybe it will give you an idea on something you want to explore further. 
    • NEVER just use a topic the teacher gives you if you have no interest. It may seem easy but you feel very unmotivated to work and it feels like work. If you choose something you are passionate about, you can work for hours upon hours and it's ‘fun’.
  • If you’re stuck, ask yourself a different question again. I’ll tell you a story; one of the reasons why Karl Bentz (inventor of cars) was able to come up with such innovation was because he wasn’t limited within the frame of the question. Instead of asking ‘how can I make better horse carriage,’ but a broader question ‘how can I make better transportation.’
    • For inspiration, check out Google science fair, it may make you feel bad for not doing this but it shows how the students found questions which they wanted to answer.
  • If you know what major you want to do, go to a university’s website and go into the mandatory classes or just classes for that major. Read the summary of the class for ideas on what broad areas you can possibly do.
  • When you settle down on a topic, you need to narrow down/specify it so that you can experiment it. For example, rather than investigating a humongous topic like ‘optimal design of 1kg water rocket,’ instead investigate ‘best amount of water for 1kg water rocket to maximize its shooting height.’ Do you see what I mean? 
 
Doing the actual research
 Some resources are:
  • JStor
    • a digital library with academic journals
    • -ve: Need an account, try asking your school if they have one or you can make one and it costs money
  • ResearchGate
    • Large database of academic journals. 
    • -ve: Beware that some research papers need permission to open
  • Google scholar
  • Ask your teacher for help and see if they know anything;
  • Your textbook may also have a little bit more on the topic.
 
Tips:
  • You might end up reading a lot of academic journals with complex language. Don’t try to interpret every single sentence carefully. Skim read quickly, and pick the parts that you really need. Remember it is important to work hard, but also to work smart. MAKE SURE that the research paper is quite reliable (check the author, number of times it was cited etc.)
  • When starting off, you can use Wikipedia’s citation at the bottom to bring you to some resources
  • When you find academic papers, go to the very end on the citation list to find more papers/resources. 
  • This is especially important for research journals that you want to reference for your experiment. Lots of research journals are not replicable, for many reasons (equipment problems, or even unreliable data), but a more reliable research journal would be easy to replicate. Don’t be afraid to use other resources like physics modelling software!
(some cited from Lanternaeducation.com)

Pros of doing Natural science EE
  • A great opportunity if you love math, science, and experiments (of course!) 
  • It provides a very good room for self-directed learning. 
    • Through Chemistry EE, I’ve learned so much about research techniques, broadened by knowledge about pharmaceutics (my topic was about tea & medicine interaction), helped me understand what I want to study in university etc. it helps you ponder on what aspects of physics you like, and how to prepare for higher education of physics too.
  • It also greatly helps your personal statement (of course, only if you personally find it valuable.) 
    • For my UC schools and Common Application applications, I wrote about how it taught me to take gradual, realistic steps towards a goal etc.
    • The UK  highly encourages doing major-related EE.
  • It makes IA way easier for you too.
    •  IA is like a mini version of EE, because the topic doesn’t have to be new, could be anything within the syllabus, and structure & content could be shallower than EE. You’ve gone through the pain of EE? IA will be like lifting a feather for you. (slight exaggeration has been added.)
  
Cons of doing Natural science EE
  • They are extremely hard and time-consuming. 
    • I would say, studying at high school is like a tutorial version, and EE is the very first entrance to real academic exploration. When tests and classes focus on accumulating fundamental knowledge. This makes EEs more complex because the gap between absorbing knowledge and applying knowledge is huge- 
    • Especially for physics...it holds a lot of abstract concepts, sometimes in a microscale/macroscale, so experiment could be limited, and finding scientific explanation to experiments could be complex. It is extremely hard to get an A in physics, and the statistics are quite… discouraging.
  • I don’t mean to discourage you from venturing on EE, but I just want to say, try hard and open up your options. If it is too much of a stress and time-consuming, spending time on doing other EEs might be more efficient. After all, EE(with TOK) just counts for part of 3 points in IB. Just a note, business EE is way easier to write.
 

4)    How to experiment
 
5)    How to structure 
Honestly, there isn’t much about it that I could tell you. Just research the structure of EE, look at examples, and follow the instructions! Good that structuring EE is easy, and yet it is worth so many marks.
 
How much information do I need?
Well, very likely that lots of your information will not be used because it is:
1.      Irrelevant to the question
2.      Repetition of what you already have
3.      Not quite right for your line of argument
So, filter it well, so that your essay is on-point! You can also make a bullet-point outline.
  • Summarise each paragraph into one line that defines the idea or sub-topic behind it.
Expand each paragraph summary by adding 2 extra bullet points:
    • Evidence, data or a quote
    • How the example relates to the idea you are trying to convey
  •  Expand your paragraph bullet points by adding in other ideas or points that are directly relevant to the overall idea behind it
 
 
 
6)    Some external resources from my tips
https://www.lanternaeducation.com/ib-blog/the-extended-essay-step-by-step-guide-structure/
https://www.lanternaeducation.com/extended-essay-step-step-guide-research/
 
Physics specific notes
Background pictures: ​https://blog.asana.com/2018/02/asana-tips/