I figured this would be a good place to ask for some suggestions that aren’t the cookie cutter projects that are on the web.
Student is average in science but is bright and loves hands on activities. She is particularly interested in animals and earth conservation but we are open to anything. We considered the breakdown of paper bags, plastic bags and biodegradable plastic bags by burying them but we only have two months and I don’t know if any kind of results would be shown in that small amount of time. (Unless someone knows how to speed that process up). As far as animals, she was thinking of getting three sets of two mice and feeding one in each set water vs vitamin water and charting growth. My problem is not being particularly fond of adding six extra pets to our already pet filled household.
Anyone do anything or see anything that impressed them that we can recreate? Thanks in advance.
Serious answer: maybe she could go to the nearby park/ravine/whatever and document the effects of pollution? Take samples from the water and test the acidity, or look around for garbage, or stuff like that.
Interesting. I guess kids aren’t as creative these days. The kids were given links to web sites along with a handout of ideas. While I think the science stars that end up winning come up with their own, most teachers use the science fair as a learning opportunity on the scientific method.
These days? My son was in the sixth grade just a few years ago. Part of the learning process is doing it on your own. 11 and 12 year olds are the appropriate age to begin doing things on their own and learning from their mistakes before they get to high school.
Looks like you are in Florida. If so I assume mosquito season is year round. Get some 5 gallon buckets. Fill them with rain water (if possible) or tap water if you have to. Let them stand in a heavily shaded area for 4 days. Get some sort of small fish, small minnows, guppies, feeder goldfish whatever will survive outside in your area. Put different numbers of fish in each bucket, maybe 6 in one bucket, 3 in another, one by itself and of course none in a control bucket. Every couple of days measure the mosquito population and note the health of the fish. Of course you need to keep animals from eating the fish and you may need bubblers to keep the water oxygenated. Ideally you would want to run at least 3 sets of data in parallel. This should give some data on predator/prey ratios and show what happens to an ecosystem when that ratio is messed up.
Disclaimer: I have never done this experiment and have no idea how well or if it would work.
Make a Zeer pot refrigerator from unglazed flowerpots from the hardware store and some sand - have another pot handy as a control. Load the pots with food samples and chart relative freshness between the cooled pot and the uncooled one.
See how long spinach leaves take to wilt, apples to spoil, etc. Pictures can illustrate the differences nicely. This is a good project for students interested in development and ecology.
Perhaps you misunderstood. The adults are specifically instructed not to help with the projects. I am asking for IDEAS other than the ones on the science web sites and hand outs that were given to the students as examples.
Check the rules before trying figure9’s suggestion. Our district has a policy that strictly prohibits using anything living. I was sure my son had it wrong. I can see not wanting the kids to use hamsters or salamanders. What about the classic grow a lima bean in dirt and one sand? Nope. Not allowed. Nothing living.
I saw a very creative one recently done by two 3rd graders that took a 21 speed bike and compared the number of gears in the front to the ones in the back by counting (ratios) and then timed how long the wheel took to stop spinning if they “pedaled” at 1 revolution per second.
The questions they were trying to answer were:
do you need the middle gear in the front?
Is the front or rear cog more important to the speed of the wheel?
The project was easy but took some time, but also had some nice hypotheses and questions to answer. I could imagine something like “Is a long ramp or a short ramp better for building up speed on my scooter?” being similar in scope.
Okay, science fair projects me and my sister did around that age:
ESP: Is it real? Requires getting volunteers to try and communicate with each other with their minds.
Who has a better sense of smell, men or women? Involved somehow (I don’t remember) making about six tubes each with a different scent, then going to the mall and asking people to try to identify the smells. I guess you could also differentiate by age, etc.
My sister made a miniature solar heater, but I don’t remember what the question/hypothesis was.
I did one testing reflex response times…dropped a ruler to see how fast people would catch it. That one might have been men v women, too–don’t remember.
The main thing is to come up with a question that can be “answered” scientifically. Does playing music make plants grow taller/quicker/bigger? Which kind of battery lasts the longest? etc.
Obviously, a sixth grader probably can’t get a sample size big enough to actually prove or disprove any of this stuff, but like somebody said–it’s about learning the scientific method.
Jello Lenses. I got a kit from Edmund Scientific where you can make lenses out of Jello. The kit is some petri dishes and watch glasses, but you can use them to make concave or convex lenses. Maybe even a prism. Different colors of jello would be fun.
and if you don’t have a laser handy (though a laser pointer would be perfect!), an LED should work, or a flashlight covered with cardboard that has a narrow slit cut out of it. The idea is to make a thin beam of light.
My daughter made different colors of jello in some petri dishes and measured how much light from a laser pointer got through each one. Her idea! Her work! I was just her hunchbacked lab assistant.
The results were surprising!
Maybe use a glass prism and show the different spectrums (ok, it’s “spectra”) from different light sources: sun light, incandescent light bulbs, fluorescent light bulbs, LEDs, candles, matches, etc. Colored filters would be fun. Split the light with one prism and re-combine it with another, or try to.
Mechanical Advantage Mechanical advantage - Wikipedia or why bikes (and cars) have gears, why they have different gears, and why you need “low” gears to start, but “high” gears to go fast.
Wiki links:
A scale model of the Solar System, where the size of the planets, and their distances are to the same scale:
OK, he’d have to do this on one occasion and show the write-up at the fair, but this looks like fun. I have wanted to do this since I first read about it in 1991!
Why is Pluto no longer considered a planet?
Include the Trans-Neptunian objects discovered by Michael Brown Michael E. Brown - Wikipedia an interesting character
himself.
Exoplanets - planets around other stars!
Latitude and Longitude - measure where you are on earth.
Make ball and stick models of a crystal structure. Sodium Chloride would be good - it’s nice and cubic, but the ions alternate so it’s interesting.
Also, many things have this structure. Oddly, very few solids are simple cubic structures.
A more advanced step would be to also construct an octahedral model of NaCl. Octahedron - Wikipedia - it’s like two Egyptian pyramids glued together at the bases.
Imagine your cube, but “cut off” the corners. With the NaCl structure, you should get octahedral planes that are all sodium or all chlorine ions. Most crystalline solids have different properties depending on which crystal face is showing. This shows why. See Miller index - Wikipedia - the first illustration is pretty good.
Build a small Foucault Pendulum - prove the earth rotates!
A small one won’t work very well, but it can show the motion of the earth underneath it.
Make a “Seconds Pendulum” out of a meter stick
The Feather and the Farthing
Air resistance: Drop a feather and a coin at the same time. The coin hits the ground first. If you do the same experiment in a vacuum, they’ll fall at the same time. What, you don’t want your ten year old building a vacuum pump? Try t with a dollar and a quarter (inflation, don’cha know). First,
drop them, and watch the coin hit the ground first. Then suck all of the air out of the room. Or, fold the dollar into a small wad, taped if necessary. Then drop them both again - they’ll hit the ground at nearly the same time. Even though they don’t weigh the same.
Aluminum in Aluminum foil
Americium in smoke dectectors
Helium in balloons
Copper in wires or pennies
etc.
Try for “pure” elements first, then for compounds. Sodium is explosive and Chlorine gas is poisonous, by table salt is safe (unless you have high blood pressure!).
Not sure how feasible this would be as a science fair project, per se, but it’s something I’d like to see in some science class setting:
Pick a recipe. One that involves baking would probably be best. Follow the recipe TO THE LETTER–if it says to use room-temperature butter, use room-temperature butter, etc. Note results, take pictures of final product, perhaps sample a bit, etc.
Then make the recipe again…but this time change something around. Use three eggs instead of two. Use less (or more) vegetable oil. Just make sure that it’s different from when you made the recipe the first time around. Make sure that that one thing is the ONLY thing you change, though. Again, note results, etc.
Then research the properties of whatever it is that you have changed. What is it about eggs (or whatever) that makes the texture or taste the way it is? What’s its chemical makeup? What are its molecules like, and what are they doing during baking?
Of course, whatever it is you change, you’ll want to be careful, so that you don’t start a fire or anything. If you’re increasing or decreasing something, make sure it’s in small amounts. And always supervise your child in the kitchen.
This is a little advanced for 6th grade but would probably be a winner if you did it it - a radiation detecting cloud chamber that shows you the paths of charged sub-atomic particles from radioactive decay.
There are many other good sites with construction plans and tips - this is just the bare bones. You will also need a good radiation source. In the past the suggestion has been the mantle from a gas lamp but the Americium in a smoke detector might also work.