The authors have developed a successful approach to teaching and inspiring undergraduate science and nonscience majors to complete creditable, semester-long, hands-on science research projects. This approach utilizes a carefully developed scaffolding consisting of in-class exercises and discussions, preparatory homework and lab events, and three well-calibrated milestones prior to submission of students' final report. This scaffolding has increased student confidence and the caliber of final projects. (Contains 1 figure and 3 tables.)