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AI chatbots are good at producing a long list of project ideas in a few seconds. They are bad at knowing what your school lab has, what you can afford, or what your judges have already seen ten times. So use AI for the brainstorm, then do the judging yourself.
How do I use AI to find science project ideas for class 9 and 10?
Give the chatbot your real limits, or it will suggest a robot arm or a CRISPR experiment. A prompt like this works:
"I'm in class 9. I have four weeks, a small budget, a kitchen and a balcony. Give me 10 investigation ideas on water conservation. In each one I change one thing and measure another with a ruler, thermometer, stopwatch or kitchen scale. No flames, no microbes, no animals, no mains electricity."
Choose the topic from your exhibition's theme. In CBSE's 2025-26 circular, the theme was "STEM for Viksit and Atmanirbhar Bharat", with seven sub-themes including sustainable agriculture, green energy, and water conservation and management (CBSE circular Acad-63/2025). Themes change every year, so check your school's current circular before you start. If your project might go further, read our guide to NCERT's national science exhibition (RBVP).
How do I check if a science project idea is feasible and safe?
Put every idea through four filters. Score each from 0 to 2, and drop any idea that gets a 0 for safety.
Feasibility: can you finish it with the tools, time and skills you have now, and get readings you can measure?
Safety: does it avoid flames, mains electricity, strong chemicals, microbes, people and animals? International science fair rules from Society for Science say that projects with human participants, vertebrate animals or potentially hazardous biological agents must be reviewed and approved before experimenting begins (ISEF rules for all projects).
Cost: can you build it from things at home or cheap local materials? CBSE's circular also asks students to use eco-friendly materials.
Originality: does it add a local twist or a new question, or is it the volcano everyone brings?
Judges score cost and originality directly. In CBSE's 2025-26 rubric, creativity and imagination carried 20%, originality and innovativeness 15%, scientific thought, principle or approach 15%, and "economics (low cost), portability and durability" 10% (CBSE circular Acad-63/2025).
Worked example: four AI ideas through the four filters
Here is how a class 9 student might score four ideas from the prompt above (feasibility, safety, cost, originality):
AI app that spots plant disease from leaf photos: 0, 2, 1, 1. You would need a labelled photo set and coding skills you may not have yet. Drop it.
Biogas from kitchen waste: 1, 0, 1, 0. Methane is flammable and the idea is common. Drop it.
Bacteria on phone screens: 1, 0, 2, 1. Growing microbes needs supervision and approval. Drop it.
Does a dry-leaf mulch reduce water loss from potted soil? 2, 2, 2, 1. Keep it, then make it more original with a local material, such as coconut coir against dry neem leaves.
How do I plan a fair test with a variable table?
A fair test changes one thing, measures one thing and keeps everything else the same. Write your plan as a variable table before you buy anything. For the mulch project:
Question: how does the thickness of a dry-leaf mulch change the water lost from a pot of soil in 48 hours?
Independent variable (you change): mulch thickness: 0, 1, 2 and 3 cm.
Dependent variable (you measure): water lost, found by weighing each pot on a kitchen scale at the start and after 48 hours.
Controlled variables (you keep the same): pot size, soil type and mass, water added, place on the balcony, start time.
Control: the 0 cm pots with no mulch.
Repeats: three pots for each thickness, so one odd pot cannot decide your result.
Plot water lost against thickness and explain the pattern using evaporation. If evaporation and humidity feel shaky, the Fermi Concept Library has a lesson for every concept in physics, chemistry and biology. For more on turning a curious question into a testable one, read how to build a science project from a question.
What should I never let AI do for my project?
Do not let AI write your results, invent your data or supply your references. In a study of 636 citations that ChatGPT produced for short literature reviews, 55% of the GPT-3.5 citations and 18% of the GPT-4 citations were fabricated (Walters and Wilder, Scientific Reports, 2023). Look up every source yourself, and read why AI makes up sources and how to check them.
If you can't tell where to start, Fermi's AI tutor can work out what you already know and build a plan for the session. Then the judging, the measuring and the explaining are yours.
