Junior & Senior Division Categories (Grades 7-12)
Animal & Plant Sciences
This category includes all aspects of animal and plant sciences. Including animal life, animal life cycles, and animal interactions with one another or with their environment. The studies of plants and how they live, including structure, physiology, development, and classification; plant cultivation, development, ecology, genetics and plant breeding, pathology, physiology, systematics and evolution.
Behavioral & Social Science
The science or study of the thought processes and behavior of humans and other animals in their interactions with the environment studied through observational and experimental methods.
Biology & Biochemistry
Interdisciplinary field, including studies of the structure, function, intracellular pathways, and formation of cells. Studies can involve understanding life and cellular processes specifically at the molecular level. The study of micro-organisms, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, prokaryotes, and simple eukaryotes as well as antimicrobial and antibiotic substances. The study of the chemical basis of processes occurring in living organisms, including the processes by which these substances enter into, or are formed in, the organisms and react with each other and the environment.
Biomedical, Medicine, & Health Sciences
This category focuses on studies specifically designed to address issues of human health and disease. It includes studies on the diagnosis, treatment, prevention or epidemiology of disease and other damage to the human body or mental systems. Includes studies of normal functioning and may investigate internal as well as external factors such as feedback mechanisms, stress or environmental impact on human health and disease.
Chemistry
Studies exploring the science of the composition, structure, properties, and reactions of matter not involving biochemical systems.
Earth & Environmental Science
Studies of the environment and its effect on organisms/systems, including investigations of biological processes such as growth and life span, as well as studies of Earth systems and their evolution.
Energy: Chemical & Physical
Studies involving biological and chemical processes of renewable energy sources, clean transport, and alternative fuels. Studies of renewable energy structures/processes including energy production and efficiency.
Engineering: Civil & Environmental
Studies that focus on the science and engineering that involve movement or structure. The movement can be by the apparatus or the movement can affect the apparatus. Studies that engineer or develop processes and infrastructure to solve environmental problems in the supply of water, the disposal of waste, or the control of pollution.
Engineering: Electrical & Computer Science
The study or development of software, information processes or methodologies to demonstrate, analyze, or control a process/solution. Studies involving electrical systems in which information is conveyed via signals and waveforms for purposes of enhancing communications, control and/or sensing. Studies in which the use of machine intelligence is paramount to reducing the reliance on human intervention.
Engineering: Materials & Mechanical
The study of the characteristics and uses of various materials with improvements to their design which may add to their advanced engineering performance.
Physics, Astronomy, & Mathematics
Physics is the science of matter and energy and of interactions between the two. Astronomy is the study of anything in the universe beyond the Earth. Mathematics is the study of the measurement, properties, and relationships of quantities and sets, using numbers and symbols. The deductive study of numbers, geometry, and various abstract constructs, or structures.
Categories are adapted from the Intel ISEF categories and descriptions.