A Biology EE with living organisms is one of the most rewarding routes, but it comes with ethics rules that trip students up. If your experiment stresses or harms an organism, you need to be careful, even with the best intentions.
A permit helps, but you still need a risk assessment
If you have a collection permit from local authorities, that satisfies a key IB requirement. But the bigger thing examiners look for is a risk assessment that shows why the work had to be done this way, and why you could not use a less harmful alternative. Document your permits and show clearly that the research is legal and ethical.
The safest route is usually lab-grown
If there is a lab-grown or cultured alternative, use it. Researchers run these tests on lab-grown specimens all the time, and IB does not restrict that. Stressing a wild organism or ecosystem, permit or not, is far harder to justify than working with material that was grown for the purpose.
Do not forget replicability
IB cares a lot that a science experiment is controllable and easily replicable. A one-off manipulation of a wild organism often is not, which can quietly cost you marks even if the ethics check out.
Key Takeaways
- Document everything: permits, sourcing, and approvals
- Write a risk assessment that justifies your method and rules out gentler alternatives
- Prefer lab-grown or cultured material where it exists
- Keep the experiment scientific, controllable, and easily replicable
- Get proper supervision, ideally a university lab contact for advanced work
Free
See how to choose and justify a research method that holds up. Read the research methods guide.