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Make a group of like minded people numbering not more than five. They may belong to your school or your locality.
Discuss amongst your group the activity you all would like to do. It will be good and satisfying for you all if you take up a local specific issue. Community interaction and cooperation is also expected in all cases. Never select a project that does not give you satisfaction and scope for learning new things.
Depending upon the subject area chosen, now it is time to look for a guide. The person could be your teacher, experienced NCSC participant or any of your family member. Do not let the guide to work for your project. He/She has to be a path finder only.
Analyse the problem and make a work plan. Divide your responsibilities. It is good to discuss the questionnaire, design of experiments, method of community interaction etc. amongst your group. Keep interacting with team member, guide teacher regularly. Do accept critical suggestions which improve outcome of your project.
Do not derive big conclusions as you are working in a small area with a small sample size. Do not generalise your observations/conclusions.
Create community awareness of about your findings and try finding out solutions. You may use media to focus attention of your authorities to help solving the problem, but first have discussions or give representations to the involved authority(ies).
Try finding ways and means of solving the problem by scientific inputs and community involvement. Keep proper records of your made by you and interest shown by them. This will not only help in making your project report but in the follow-up action with higher authorities/community.
If one strategy or solution does not work try finding out alternative. Do not give recommendations only. You must try implementing of at least a few suggested recommendations first.
You may not succeed in the efforts made to solve the problem but you should be able to find possible bottleneck in implementing your suggested strategy. Keep your record of them.
Once you are working in a group you all have contributed in doing the activity. All should respect and value the efforts made by your team members. Each one of the team members has total understanding about the project, but due to certain logistic reasons only one person is allowed to come to the state/national level. All you should sit together and decide who will represent your group at state and national level. This does not in any way negate efforts of other team members. In the evaluation procedure, co-operation within the team and also community plays and important role in the selection of the proposals.
Proper documentation will help you in presentation of your report. For writing the project report read the section on 'How to write a project report'.
You are supposed to present important findings or innovative procedures with the help of posters. Do not take help of any professional artist for the same. Each poster should be self contained. The posters should be well labeled giving title of project, participants. These posters not only help you while making presentation but also help other children who could not make participate during your presentation to understand and appreciate your work.
Note that in NCSC projects which are innovative (in idea or even methodology) only draw attention Do not spend money on video/audio recording, DTP of your presentation, making unnecessary slides. These display methods do not attract the evaluators.
You may spend money on
* developing some gadget, working model(s)
* material for awareness generation
The project which keep continuing even after completion of NCSC tenure for a particular year, are source of attraction of evaluators and community. Keep your state coordinators informed about such work even if you are above 17 and cease to be participant of NCSC.
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