Extended Essay and the Collaborative Sciences Project
📝The Extended Essay in physics
A 4000-word independent research essay, supervised but not taught, worth part of the core points alongside TOK. Around 40 hours of your own time. It is marked against five criteria:
- A — Focus and method (6 marks): a sharply defined research question and an appropriate methodology.
- B — Knowledge and understanding (6 marks): physics used accurately and in context.
- C — Critical thinking (12 marks): analysis, discussion and evaluation. This is the largest single block, and it is where most essays lose marks.
- D — Presentation (4 marks): structure, layout, referencing.
- E — Engagement (6 marks): assessed from your Reflections on Planning and Progress Form.
What makes a physics EE work. The question must be answerable quantitatively. “How does the length of a pendulum affect its period?” is answerable but far too well known to allow real critical thinking; “Is nuclear power a good idea?” is interesting but not physics. Aim for something narrow, measurable, and slightly awkward — a question where you genuinely do not know the answer before you start, and where the data will need careful treatment.
💡An opportunity created by the 2023 syllabus change
Several topics left the course but remain excellent EE territory precisely because they are no longer taught: cosmology and Hubble’s law, medical imaging, and much of particle physics. You will not be examined on them, which means an EE in one of these areas is genuinely your own work rather than a rehearsal of class notes.
🤝The Collaborative Sciences Project
This replaces the old Group 4 project. It is compulsory, takes around 10 hours within the practical scheme of work, and is not assessed — there are no marks attached, only a requirement that you take part.
The change from the Group 4 project is one of emphasis. Where that project asked groups to investigate a shared topic, the Collaborative Sciences Project asks you to work across the sciences — physics with chemistry, biology, computer science, sports science, design technology — on a real problem, ideally connected to one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals or to a local issue.
What it asks of you: identify a genuine problem, plan collaboratively across subject boundaries, carry out the work, and reflect on both the science and the collaboration itself. The reflection is the part students tend to treat as an afterthought and the part the project actually exists for.
Because it is unassessed, it is also the one piece of DP science work where you can afford to be ambitious and to fail interestingly. Use it that way.
📅Deadlines and support
School deadlines for the EE proposal, first reflection, interim draft and final submission will be set separately — check with me and diarise them early. The three formal reflection sessions with your supervisor are compulsory and feed directly into criterion E.
🔗Go deeper — other people’s work
The IB’s own Extended Essay guide is the authoritative source and is available through your school’s My IB access. Note that some older EE links on the web point to the pre-2018 criteria, which no longer apply.