Science Fair Project Ideas Needed

[DisneyFan32WI]

Both my daughters need to come up with 6th & 8th grade science fair projects ideas. They keep coming up with ideas that are too easy. I want something that can be fun to do, easy but not TOO easy, and a project that others will be interested in.

Has anyone done anything that fits my description?

I truly hate this time of year! They normally spend hours upon hours on this project. Last year, however, they were at least allowed to work with a partner.

Anyone else not interested in science fair projects?? Ughh....

TIA!

 

[Shelton123]

How music affects the emotions!

You could have everyone draw while they were listening to songs, and analyze the drawings to see if it worked. That's what I did, I got an A.

 

[Luv Bunnies]

My son just did a project where he simulated earthquakes to see how various building designs would hold up. He made a "shake table" out of cardboard, rubber bands and rolled it across super balls to cause an earthquake (it was more complicated than that but that's the basic idea). He made the buildings out of Legos. He recorded data based on the height and width of the buildings and whether they fell at certain magnitudes. The Science Fair was just on Thursday and everyone, including his teacher, loved his project.

Last year, he tested the effects of sugar on house plants. He got three identical plants and watered them twice a week over six weeks. He gave one water (no sugar), one got sports drink (more sugar) and one got soda (lots of sugar). His prediction was that the plant with soda would die the fastest and it did. In fact, it turned brown and got moldy right away. The sports drink plant didn't die but wasn't healthy either. The plant with water did fine.

If you look on the Internet under "school science projects" or "science fair projects," you'll get lots of ideas.

 

[Bluestars]

This project might be too simple, but my son did a project that had to do with taste and perception. He made three batches of candy with a fudge-like consistency. One was white, the other was the same except red food coloring was added for a pink appearance, and the third batch had food coloring to make it look like chocolate.

Then he created a survey and had people fill out a form and tell him what each color tasted like. The people in the survey did not know the candy was all the same flavor. So, many people wrote down strawberry or cherry for the pink and things like chocolate and coffee for the brown.

He tallied up all of the responses, made a graph and a report. He won an award for it.

 

[TheZue]

The effectiveness of shampoo is always a fun one. Basically you put oil in water and see how much shampoo it takes to absorb the oils. Moved me right off of Pert Plus; it never did absorb the oil

If you guys have a couple small aquariums you could always get some easy breeding fish and see how water temperature affects gestation time.

You could also do a test of how differently food products made from scratch and those commercially prepared break down; basically demonstrating the effectiveness of preservatives.

 

[smschex]

I agree with the OP--I hate science fair time!

DS used the Wii and compared several activities on the Wii fit with actual exercise. He used heart rate, blood pressure, and respiratory rate as parameters to see which was more effective exercise.

He was interested in the subject and it wasn't too much trouble.

 

[golfgal]

Do something on tsunami's. There will be a plethora of info out in the next week or so.

 

[scottishduffy]

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/recommender_register.php


Go to this website.

It contains hundreds of science projects. You start out by taking a small survey regarding grade level, time to do project, and interests. Then based on your survey recommends a project for you to do. See if that gives you guys any ideas! once you get the list of projects they are also ranked by difficulty level so you can choose a more challenging project if you wish.

 

[summerrluvv]

Which laundry soap works the best is one my son did last year and received honorable mention. I also did the same one when I was in 7th grade. It's fun and pretty easy. Buy 3 kinds of soap and stain a white piece of cloth with mustard, choco syrup and ketchup.

 

[Drew Sailbum]

Junior CSI-type project

Extract DNA from Strawberries (or most any food item). Compare yield of DNA from various foods. Apple vs Strawberry... which has more DNA per ounce of fruit, and why?

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/BioChem_p015.shtml

This can be done with common household chemicals like salt, rubbing alcohol, and dish washing liquid.

 

[IDoDis]

Do you have a dog? A fun idea for a project would be to see which type of meat a dog prefers -- beef, chicken or pork or fish?

Get 3 plastic containers with lids (like the disposable ones from Ziplock or Glad). Put a chunk of raw beef in container #1, a chunk of raw chicken in container #2, and a chunk of raw fish or pork in container #3.

Poke holes or small slits in the tops of the containers. Place each container in a corner of a fairly empty room. Then, bring in the dog and take data for 2 minutes (tally marks) on how often he/she sniffs each container. Which one does the dog keep going back to the most?

Remove the dog from the room and switch the positions of the containers so they are not in the same spots. Let the dog back in the room and take data again for 2 minutes.

Remove the dog, switch the containers and repeat one more time.

Have your friends bring their dogs over and do the same thing. You'd need to do this with at least 5 dogs to have enough data.

 

[StitchFanZ]

Both my daughters need to come up with 6th & 8th grade science fair projects ideas. They keep coming up with ideas that are too easy. I want something that can be fun to do, easy but not TOO easy, and a project that others will be interested in.

TIA!

If they come up with simple ideas that are science related, I'd let them do it! Its thier project and should be thier idea not what someone else wants. If they don't do well they may be inspired to pick something tougher next year or if they do well they will have the pride of knowing the picked the idea.

 

[Mickey Fliers]

Past award winners in my house:

Do people prefer the taste of Organic Foods
- Basically a blind taste test between food and their organic equivalent. Interesting results!

Two words....Quick Sand.
- Kids love this stuff and it is easy to make

What gets gum out of hair the best/
- For this, you generally needs someone with a decent length of hair who is ready for a cut.

Good luck!

 

[PrincessKsMom]

Past award winners in my house:

Do people prefer the taste of Organic Foods
- Basically a blind taste test between food and their organic equivalent. Interesting results!

Two words....Quick Sand.
- Kids love this stuff and it is easy to make

What gets gum out of hair the best/
- For this, you generally needs someone with a decent length of hair who is ready for a cut.

Good luck!

Scissors.

 

[Mickey Fliers]

Scissors.

Okay...you win!

 

[meliss8599]

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/recommender_register.php


Go to this website.

It contains hundreds of science projects. You start out by taking a small survey regarding grade level, time to do project, and interests. Then based on your survey recommends a project for you to do. See if that gives you guys any ideas! once you get the list of projects they are also ranked by difficulty level so you can choose a more challenging project if you wish.

Wow! What a fabulous site! I will definitely recommend this to my third graders and to the other teachers when Science Fair time rolls around this year. Thanks for sharing!

 

[disneymarie]

Both my daughters need to come up with 6th & 8th grade science fair projects ideas. They keep coming up with ideas that are too easy. I want something that can be fun to do, easy but not TOO easy, and a project that others will be interested in.

Has anyone done anything that fits my description?

I truly hate this time of year! They normally spend hours upon hours on this project. Last year, however, they were at least allowed to work with a partner.

Anyone else not interested in science fair projects?? Ughh....

TIA!

Everyone likes safety things. Have them research fire extingishers, what type is used on what fires, make a poster board upright of them.

Compare and contrast the different fire alarms. too.

One boy took 1st in school with this. As your girls could get permission to work together it could be learning for the family.

 

[crewmatt]

I'll go against the safety thing. One cool thing (I have a degree in aerospace engineering) is the fact that you can basically make rocket fuel out of your favorite junk foods (oreos and jolly ranchers work pretty well). Obviously do it with an adult. You can fairly easily test how high a given rocket will go with a thing of kite string. Also you'll notice that you can easily determine a comparison between how high the rocket goes vs how much calories the food has.

But onto more realistic science experiment ideas:

1-Renewable energy/efficiency is def in - windmills, solar cells, insulation values. Perpetual energy machines are always interesting, especially if they can understand why they dont work.
2-Basic physics - its easy to do with a few marbles a piece of wood with a track cut in it, and a few blocks to make an incline, and a stopwatch.
3-How fire alarms work is actually very interesting
4-If they're mathy you could have them go over crypto type stuff (just think you can teach them to write notes to their friends without you being able to read them). The RSA algorithm requires only the knowledge of what a prime number is and how to do long division and multiplication to make it work. Completely safe otherwise. All you end up needing is a calculator or excel
5-Color of lights that helps plants grow
6-Fitness is good and very in vogue, if they're into that you could have them start an exercise program, and chart their resting heart rate every morning. Alternatively you could do body fat %age, abilities (run 1 lap around a track), etc. Depends on how much time you have to see actual results. If one wants to do it and one doesnt you have a control. Alternatively one of the parents could volunteer to be the control or subject or etc.
7-Aerodynamics - how a plane works, why a dart always lands tip first regardless of how its thrown (assuming you have a far enough distance to the target). Bouyancy, how boats float, etc.
I could go on for days. I wish I enjoyed science fair type stuff this much when I was a kid but I'll stop being annoying

 

[crewmatt]

Oh and another easy and safe thing to do is to measure what happens with pure color light (you can usually use red green and blue led's) and a solar cell (measure voltage). It won Einstein an Nobel prize.

 

[pezheadmeg]

Water evaporation. What's the ideal conditon for drying laundry.

I did it years ago, but I cut 6 pieces of identical fabric then got it wet to the same weight for each piece. Then it hung, laid, or was balled up in different locations of the yard. I weighed each piece every 2o minutes or so and charted it.