Imagination and Gender

Complexity level:	4
Project cost ($):	10
Time required:	1 hour to prepare, 2 hours for the science project experiment
Material availability:	Easily found
Safety concerns:	None

Hypothesis

Female participants are better at producing drawing from their imagination.

Overview

Imagination

Imagination is the ability of our brain to create an image or impression in our minds without perceiving the information directly through sight or other senses. It is the product of our thought and visualization. Sometimes the thought and visualization process recalls past experiences of things that have been seen, heard or felt, in order to create something new and original.

Children are normally very imaginative and like to fantasize. When they do it too frequently, it is called day dreaming. It is common among young girls to dream of being princesses while boys normally imagine themselves to be warriors or heroes. When stories or fairy tales are read to children, their minds visualize the events taking place in these stories.

Great works of art, poetry and literature are the works of someone’s imaginations. Children’s fairy tales and short stories are works of fiction that were created to capture the imagination of children. Stories like Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland introduces children’s minds to worlds that do not exist in reality. However, they were first created in the minds of very imaginative authors.

Scientific Terms

Imagination, image, sensation, visualization

Materials

The materials required for this science fair project:

-    20 male art students age 18 years
-    20 female art students age 18 years
-    40 pieces of drawing paper
-    40 pencils
-    A classroom

Procedure

1.    For this science fair project, the independent variable is the gender of the participants. The dependent variable is the imagination of the participants. This is determined by asking the art students to draw a picture from their imagination and asking the art teacher to evaluate the quality of their work. The constants (control variables) are the given topic for the drawing, the lighting in the room and the type of drawing paper and pencil provided.

2.    The 40 arts students are assigned random numbers between 1 and 40. A list of the participants name, gender and assigned number is made.

3.    All 40 arts students are assembled in the classroom and asked to sit at their tables. They are each given a piece of drawing paper and a pencil. The students are informed not to write their names on the front or back of the drawing paper. They are advised to write only the number that they were assigned to, at the back of the paper.

4.    The art students are asked to come up with a new cartoon character out of their imagination. They are given 2 hours to think about the new cartoon character and draw their creation on the drawing paper.

5.    After 2 hours the drawings are collected. The back of the drawing paper is also checked at the same time to verify if the participants have written down their assigned numbers. All 40 drawings are given to the art teacher to be graded. The grading of the art work will be based on the originality and creativity of the cartoon character created.

6.    The graded drawings are collected and separated into drawings by male and female participants. The average grades for each gender is calculated and recorded in the table below.

Results

It is observed that compared to the male art students, the female art students produced better drawings from their imagination.

Gender	Male	Female
Average grade	67%	74%

Use the below graph to plot the results of above observation.

Imagination Science Fair Project

Conclusion

The hypothesis that female participants are better at producingdrawings from their imagination is correct.

Imagination is one of the key factors required for the learning process. When we use our imagination, we visualize what we have read and then construct a picture in our minds which. Sometimes, drawing the visualized image helps us to understand the concept more quickly. New creations in art, literature or technology are the result of using one’s imagination. Hollywood movies like Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings were based on the imagination of authors, scrip writers and directors and with their imagination, they created wonderful imaginary worlds and characters.

Also consider

Repeat the science fair project to compare the ability of male and female participants in using their imagination to create stories.

Try to perform the experiment using different age groups to compare their imagination skills.

References

Imagination - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagination

Imagination and art - http://www.oldandsold.com/articles18/art-philosophers-82.shtml

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