# Good science fair projects for a third grader? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 21, 2006, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fair-projects-for-a-third-grader/341038 "2006-01-21T23:22:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![xbuckeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9e8a1a/32.png) [@xbuckeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xbuckeye)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fair-projects-for-a-third-grader/341038/21 "2006-01-23T03:39:12Z")
> [@Shirley Ujest](#): > > How about mixing science and animals? > > Static electricity and Cats. > > Rub the cat’s back on your leg and see if the animal sticks to the ceiling. “Late at night and without permission…” ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fair-projects-for-a-third-grader/341038/22 "2006-01-23T04:36:07Z")
> [@FlyingRamenMonster](#): > > Nitrogen triiodide 🙂 > > Or you could be like me and build a crappy radio that doesn’t work. But I think exploring precipitate colours might be kind of cool, if you have access to lab reagents. Or get a pH meter and test the pH of various solutions you find around the house. Look, if you’re going to be doing dangerous chemistry in the household you might as well go all-out and cook up some meth or something (this is not a serious suggestion.) Or do like I keep thinking I’ll do whenever I find I need some acetone and oxidize isopropanol with bleach instead of going to the store and getting weird looks when I buy nail-polish remover. (Neither is this, though it probably could be done safely enough. One thing that stops me from trying it is the lack of a decent ventilation system as well as the ensuing distillation problem.) Radios are boring. Does anyone even build a crystal radio these days, and what could you get on it besides religious broadcasting and sports? How about a homebrewed low-megahertz continuous wave NMR? Bonus points if the school administration freaks out because of the use of the _other_ N-word. Not sure about the output, but there’s gotta be a way to do it, even with a strip chart. (More power to you if you can figure it out, because all I can think of would be to start looking at old physics and p. chem journals from the 50s.) Or a Beowulf cluster of X-Box 360s (or if you want to be cheap and boring, NESes or Commodore 64s or Apple IIs, though that would actually become pretty cool if you had enough of them.) Does she have a brother? How about the old classic, [“Is my brother dumber than a hamster?”](http://www.snpp.com/episodes/9F14.html) Or maybe she can borrow **inkleberry** ’s kid (who apparently thinks he is a hamster) and pit him against a real hamster. Okay, for a real suggestion, the _New Horizons_ launched for Pluto last week. Although it’s a demonstration project, how about an explanation of the slingshot manuver it’s going to take around Jupiter and some of the other stuff about the mission. Best of all, she can crib it all (remember, it’s not plagirisim if everything’s cited 😉 ) from the [website](http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/). Even better if you can find a way to model the gravitational effect. ---
**Author:** ![MissMossie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@MissMossie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissMossie)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fair-projects-for-a-third-grader/341038/23 "2006-01-23T05:05:46Z")
I did one once comparing homemade bubble solution to store bought. I tested how big the average bubbles were (well, that’s the theory, I actually lied through my teeth about the results) by letting the bubble pop on construction paper and measuring the diameter of the watermark left. An even better project idea would be to see how many of her peers lie about their projects or have their parents do the majority of the work. I’d love to see the results on that one. -Mosquito ---
**Author:** ![Alias](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e4f/32.png) [@Alias](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alias)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fair-projects-for-a-third-grader/341038/24 "2006-01-23T15:31:22Z")
Thanks guys! There are some really great suggestions in here. ---
**Author:** ![h.sapiens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e0b2c6/32.png) [@h.sapiens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/h.sapiens)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fair-projects-for-a-third-grader/341038/25 "2006-01-23T17:58:14Z")
[Emily Rosa](http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9804/01/therapeutic.touch/) was in the fourth grade when she debunked Therapeutic Touch in a simple blind test for her school science fair. Maybe your kid could test some other kind of pseudoscience idea, like dowsing, Ouija boards, astrology, etc. Maybe she could even become famous! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-science-fair-projects-for-a-third-grader/341038.md?page=1)