Are men and women different in their tastes of how to spend free time? Are teenagers different? Here's some background information that could be an interesting science fair project to help you find out. If you are not interested in doing a project, you could do this experiment for the fun of it.

Let's begin with some preconceived notions of what we think men and boys like to do. Sporting events of all kinds; car racing, football, baseball, basketball, hockey and wrestling would be among the favorites. Men like to male bond doing things like hunting, fishing, camping, playing golf, playing cards and other forms of gambling.

Some stereotypical diversions for girls and women might include visiting art galleries, spending time with book clubs, shopping and window shopping, charitable work and child care.

These gender-related avocations may seem a bit medieval and chauvinistic. Or are they? We will find out with an experiment to learn the truth.

Gather a list of all of the friends and family that you think would enjoy participating in the experiment. If you are doing a science fair project, make sure you quantify all of your data to make your presentation. Get a good mix of men and women, boy and girls. The more the merrier.

Structure a questionnaire listing activities like those mentioned above and add as many different activities that you can think of. If you wish to focus on high school students, for example, you may wish to include items like school social activities, school trips, athletic events, dances, lectures, seminars, field trips, after-school activities, home work and so on.

If you are working with adults, you might include luncheon meetings, parent-teacher activities, going to the playground with your children, and most anything that you wish to include. You should create a good mix of so called male and female oriented diversions.

It would be helpful to have as many as twenty people on your list, making certain that you have a representative number of people of different genders and age groups. Prepare your questionnaire and ask them to rate what they like on a scale of one to five, with one being something they really like, and five being something they never do.

Gather the finished data, reduce the figures, and come up with your answers. What have you found? Where your preconceived notions borne out? Or where you surprised with the results?

Mort Barish is co-founder of Terimore Institute, Inc. providing science fair projects for children in grades K-12 to help them successfully compete in science fairs. He has been creating educational materials for children and related graphic communications for almost fifty years. He is the author of seven books and has won numerous awards for his graphic presentations.