<p>My youngest child is in 8th grade - that means, Science Fair time!!! Ugh. Not my favorite memory of junior high for my kids!!! The fair itself is cool to see and is a good experience for the kids, but the L-O-N-G process (our school starts it soon but the actual fair isn’t until late winter…) is not always so nifty.</p>
<p>This year, D’s science teacher has thrown in a few curves (though we have nothing in writing, which I think she would be wise to take the time to do). No projects involving plants. No projects involving people - no surveying of people, using people to complete a task, nothing to do w/people. I believe also, nothing about animals. Geez.</p>
<p>Not sure what D will end up with idea wise. She is suppose to decide by Friday (another pet peeve - science teacher is making kids decide about topic by Friday, has told them that NO ONE will be allowed to change their topic, but has NOT explained the process and requirements to them - poor teaching decision IMO!!!)</p>
<p>Not looking to steal anyone’s project idea. There are PLENTY of books and websites out there that you can snoop on. Just wondered if anyone wanted to share previous projects your child/ren have done or that you have seen at your school fairs. Some can be really random!</p>
<p>My two oldest did something on the following (don’t ask me for the exact/correct hypothesis - I can’t/don’t want to remember!)</p>
<p>D - why/how “brain freezes” occur. Can you tell she is an ice cream fanatic?
S - how the amount of air in a soccer ball effects kick performance. Can you tell he was a goalie/keeper???</p>
<p>The best project my kids did was my younger son’s which was “Are two ears better than one”. We blindfolded subjects and used earplugs on one ear to see how well one could locate sound in front, behind, to the sides and overhead. The results were not quite what we expected, though obviously two ears are better than one.</p>
<p>My older son did one with a trebuchet - trying to figure out how you could maximize how far a ball would get thrown. He made it way too complicated and it turns out the math is way beyond even a very smart 5th grader, but it was fun. (Catapult would probably be simpler - could vary either ball weight or arm length.)</p>
<p>Older son also did one comparing paper airplane shapes and length of time in the air.</p>
<p>I’m so happy the science fair days are behind our family. A kid I know told me he did one on light polarization. I don’t recall the specifics, but I think he said he shone a light through a tube and used a light meter to measure the output and then put a bunch of polarizing filters in place and measured the output again. His dad was an electrical engineer so it is possible he had access to some sort of special light meter that could do very sensitive measurements. </p>
<p>I can kind of see where the teacher is coming from when it comes to plants. One of my kids’ friends is fortunately a super organized, start-early type. When the first crop of plants he grew died (due to non-experimental reasons) he had time to grow a second crop and carry out the experiment. For most kids, it would have been a whole different story!</p>
<p>Oh yeah, that’s the OTHER part of science fair projects that are annoying…when it’s fairly obvious that the project became the parent project (or that the parent in their excitement took over) and not the student’s project.</p>
<p>^I agree. With parental involvement, internet searches to copy from, too many kids are learning the wrong lessons they were supposed to acquire from the experience. And this nonsense continues all the way up. </p>
<p>I preferred when my kids’ had to do entire projects at school, during school hours- it kept a lot of the crap at bay and made kids solely responsible for it all. They were lower key but far more educational this way.</p>
<p>You’re so right about more being learned when the kids do it during school hours, starbright. I still remember the one the doctor–oops, I mean the doctor’s kid–did.</p>
<p>Yes-keep them at school! Otherwise I think the grades and results correlate highly to parental income and involvement. Some of these projects get waaay too expensive, another factor the teachers never seem to consider.</p>
<p>I cannot for the life of me figure out why the teacher cannot provide a list of appropriate topics. The identification of a testable question and the construction of an experiment to test the question are not really the same skill. The kids would get just as much from figuring out how to test the question if they pick from a list of testable questions!</p>
<p>No plants, animals, or people? That leaves more or less physics and chemistry topics. There are also some consumer science topics: will bread stored on the counter, the refrigerator, or in the breadbox last the longest without mold? Will dishes hand-washed in running water vs. dishes washed in a dishpan vs. dishes washed in the dishwasher have the most germs? (requires petri dishes)</p>
<p>My daughter (a singer) did a project on the effect of body position on vocal range. But this required human subjects (the high school women’s choir). I thought it was a good topic because the background research was of interest to her and the data collection was straightforward.</p>
<p>When my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I were college students, our profound scientific curiosity once led us to try to figure out how much water a condom could hold without bursting. </p>
<p>We conducted our experiment in the most readily available “laboratory” – the bathroom sink. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, we could not obtain definitive data. The condom (Trojan brand, I believe) expanded to fill the entire sink without showing any sign of leakage. We discontinued the experiment at that point for fear of getting water all over the floor. (Need I mention that we were conducting this experiment in my boyfriend’s father’s apartment when he was not at home?)</p>
<p>But maybe it would work in a bathtub? Or out in the yard, in front of all the neighbors? With photos, of course. One could compare multiple brands so there would be something to plot on a graph. A proper science fair display has to have a graph. </p>
<p>The student who conducted this experiment would probably flunk, of course. But it would make a great display on science fair night, especially with packaged condoms taped to the borders of the display board as decoration. (All of them would disappear by the end of the evening. Guaranteed.)</p>
<p>Full disclosure: I have very little respect for science fairs. They require parents to figure out a workable project that looks simple enough so that the kid could have done it alone. I see no point in this, and I think most parents have better things to do with their time. Some of which may involve condoms.</p>
<p>I am one of those rare people who never had to do a science fair project. Neither did either of my daughters. I was able to do an alternate assignment, which I gladly did. My daughters attended a pretty vigorous private prep school, but they didn’t do the science fair thing.</p>
<p>I’m no scientist (in fact very far from it), but I think your whole premise was wrong. You should have done your experiment with fluid which had more of a similar viscosity as…well, you know. I think using water skewed your results.</p>
<p>The key thing is to pick a project in which the output is <em>measurable</em> in some sort of numerical units. If it’s not measurable or the measurment is very subjective, it’s going to be tough to get any good data.</p>
<p>One project D2 did years ago was to go around estimating the height of vertical objects (school flagpole, road signs, trees,etc) by measuring the length of their shadows and also meauring the shadow produced by a ruler at the same time of day and then using ratios to calculate the unknown height. She calculated my height accurately to within 1/2 inch. It’s simple, doesn’t require fancy equipment, produces interesting data, and a kid can actually do and understand it.</p>
<p>I’m thinking Marian’s most interesting project could be modified to work with brands of balloons. </p>
<p>OP, what are your kid’s interests? My son liked astronomy, and built a box to illustrate types of eclipses. It wasn’t the prettiest thing, but got him to county science fair, which was held at a historic setting (so lots of fun).</p>
<p>Other projects he did involved plants, stemming from ideas from his grandmother. He was much more invested when the project was in his field of interest.</p>
<p>QMP did a project that was simple to execute, but turned out to be quite interesting. Unlike a lot of projects, it was very cheap. Required: plastic cup, hole punch, string, ruler with millimeter marks, marbles (as identical as possible), hook, spring, and strong rubber band. First, punch holes at the top of the cup, on opposite sides–probably need 4. A large plastic Solo-type cup works very well. Run string through holes, and tie at top. You want string that will not stretch much. Using a rod for clothing or something similar, hang the hook on it, so that the cup will be able to move up and down freely, without rubbing anything at the sides. You may need to attach something (non-stretchy) to the hook, so that you can hang the spring on it. Then, hang the (empty) cup on the spring. (Sequence–rod with hook, some means to attach spring, spring hooked on to cup at the bottom.) Then record the position of the bottom of the spring. Now, start filling the cup with marbles. Find how much the spring stretches, as a function of the number of marbles. It is very likely to be approximately linear. Then, empty out the cup and replace the string with the rubber band. Repeat. In this case, there will almost certainly be a nonlinear plot–a really nice curve. Many variations on this are possible, it can generate a lot of data, and it’s very cheap. With a program like Excel, it’s possible to do a least-squares fit to the line (when linear) and evaluate the spring constant.</p>
<p>How about something to do with glow-sticks and chemiluminescence? Back in the day I used to do a chemistry demo on this topic, and it was always a big favorite (a lot of “wow” factor.) You can buy all kinds of glow-sticks of varying intensity and varying lifetime, and you can even tie it in with nature (i.e., lightning bugs) and/or TV shows (i.e., the use oluminnol on crime shows like CSI). </p>
<p>Also popular was a demo on the properties of disposable diapers. You can isolate the polymeric beads from disposable diapers of several brands and test how much water they absorb (hint: cheap diapers really are just as absorbent as the pricier brands.)</p>
<p>To give appropriate credit, I think the inspiration for the project that I mentioned above came from the book “Science for Fun Experiments.” It’s really aimed at elementary-aged students, but a number of the projects can be made quantitative, and thus suitable for older students. </p>
<p>Will try to post a couple more ideas later–have some in mind.</p>