Science Fair project ideas needed

[tink_lover]

This year all 3 kids will participate. I'm having a tough time coming up with ideas and would love some input. My 4th grader would like to do something related to left versus right handedness (she's a lefty), but other than something with reaction time, I'm coming up with nothing. The other two are a 1st grader - I'm thinking of having him roll a couple of dice 100 times; and kindergartener - they usually do a display or highlight a collection. Any ideas would help get my brain moving in the right direction.

 

[An_Island_Girl]

For your 1st grader, you could bake bread, and study the effect yeast has on the rising process prior to and after cooking. (measure the rise in inches, centimeters, etc.)

 

[stepnut]

There's tons of books in the library on this topic. I'd start there.

I've never heard of a KG doing a science project! Wow. Our school starts science fair in the 4th grade. Not wanting to be the helicopter mom, I let my son pick his own topic out, and plan the experiment. He'll do all the work, with a little guidance from me. I'm a scientist by background, so I have to resist the strong temptation to do all the work for him, but hey...it's his grade, not mine!

 

[Disney 'Ohana]

My dd did one just a few weeks back testing the acidity in different brands of bottled water we drink (Dasani, Aquafina, Kirkland, Smart water, Perfect Water). We bought a simple pool testing kit, some bottled water, took pictures of the results, etc. It was fairly easy

 

[Babboo]

This year all 3 kids will participate. I'm having a tough time coming up with ideas and would love some input. My 4th grader would like to do something related to left versus right handedness (she's a lefty), but other than something with reaction time, I'm coming up with nothing. The other two are a 1st grader - I'm thinking of having him roll a couple of dice 100 times; and kindergartener - they usually do a display or highlight a collection. Any ideas would help get my brain moving in the right direction.

Reaction times - have someone put their fore finger and thumb of their "dominant" hand on either side of a ruler at the "0" mark (the beginning of the ruler). Have your 4th grader then drop the ruler between their fingers length-wise and have the participant grip the ruler between their fingers as quickly as possible, note the distance. Repeat with the "non-dominant" hand. You have a study of reaction times with left and right hands for left and right handed people.

For the first grader - let's talk about health and a simple demonstration of why we need to brush our teeth. Take 3 baby food jars label them 1 week, 2 weeks, and 1 month. In each put an equal amount of tomato soup. Now for the gross but oh-so memorable part. Have your 1st grader take a tooth pick and scrape their front teeth one month before the fair (obviously you can adjust the times based on what you have left). Have them place that toothpick in the jar marked 1 month. Two weeks later do the same thing with the jar marked 2 weeks, and again with the 1 week jar. Do not shake the jars. Let them see with amazement what is growing on the soup medium in the time. Then take them in for display and the project is showing how fast plaque and bacteria grow on our teeth when they are not cleaned.

Kindergartener - that one has me baffled. The only project that comes to mind is to take a house plant that he/she is taking care of. On ONE of the leaves have them put a piece of black cardboard/cardstock with paperclips. After one week they can remove the paper and see how much the plant needs sun and light to stay green. They can show the plant and have something written about how they did the experiment and what it shows.

Just a few thoughts.

 

[Elmo888]

Our school sent us to a few web sites, and DD8 picked a project that compared the number of unpopped kernels in a bag of microwave popcorn. She compared bags of butter vs. less butter popcorn, but your child could do something with the brands.

I think that she found it here, and you can search by age, like elementary school (love that) and interest (she searched the food science projects).

http://all-science-fair-projects.com/

Here is another one, but I didn't find this as useful...

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/sciencefaircentral/Getting-Started.html

And here is another one that I haven't checked out (given to us by the school)...

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/index.htm



Good luck!

 

[magchavez]

My son participated in the science fair last year when he was in kindergarten. He did a project on static electricity. He took a piece of plexiglass (it was 12 inches x 12 inches - Home Depot gave it to us free as it was a scrap). We put it on 2 pieces of wood so that it was about an inch above the table. Then we placed Rice Krispies on a paper plate under the plexiglass. Next take a piece of wool and rub it on top of the plexiglass. The rice krispies 'jump' off the plate and stick to the plexiglass.

 

[tink_lover]

Thanks for all the great ideas! I thought I would pass on what dd has done in the past for anyone else looking for ideas. One year she did "are you taller in the morning or at night?" and had friends/family measure for a week. She had a lot of fun with that one. She also did a city water safety one last year that was interesting. She was able to go to the pump house that services our neighborhood to see the process of water coming from the ground and follow that to the house. One that she wants to do but is waiting until she is older is measuring the fingers of the violin players she plays with and comparing them to non-players.

 

[honeysuckle_rose]

Regarding the left-hand thing, I've always heard that the nails on the dominant hand are wider than the nails on the non-dominant hand. Maybe she could do something like measure the pinky nails of lefties/righties to see if this is true?