Researchers have reported that participation in agricultural education reinforces STEM concepts. The use of projects is common in agricultural education. However, the foundational understanding of certain tenets of project use is not clear. A quasi-experimental study was conducted to test the effects of project authenticity on learning. AFNR students (N = 219) were sampled and assigned as a cohort to one of four treatments. Treatments were project types which varied in their degree of project authenticity. During analysis, it was apparent that the intended project variable of authenticity had less effect on the outcomes than other factors. An analysis of covariance was used to test the effects of perceived novelty on change scores in a pre-post quasi-experimental design. A test of project type groups, which varied on novelty, yielded statistically significant results (p < 0.05) with small effect size ([omega superscript 2] = 0.04). A Pearson Chi Square was calculated to determine if a relationship between novelty and project type existed and determined to be significant, X[superscript 2] (12, N=152) = 22.35, p = 0.034. A pairwise comparison was calculated to compare levels of novelty to determine where the variation existed. Students with novelty level 4 had statistically different change scores than those at novelty level 2 (p = 0.006) and students with novelty level 4 were different from those with a novelty level 5 (p = 0.012). Students with less familiarity with the project (a more novel project) showed more improvement on the science exam.