+
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Which Fruits Can Ruin Your Dessert?

For Students 3rd - 8th
Here is a basic project for investigating enzymes that prevent gelatin from solidifying. This way you can understand why it is some fruits are not recommended for inclusion when it comes to making gelatin.
+
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: How Much Baking Powder Do Quick Breads Need?

For Students 6th - 8th
If you like to bake, this could be a good project for you. There is a purpose for each of the ingredients in your recipes, but not everyone is always aware of what that purpose may be. Though this lab takes multiple days, you will...
+
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Can Baking Soda Substitute for Baking Powder in a Recipe?

For Students 9th - 10th
There's nothing quite like the smell of fresh-baked muffins for breakfast on a Saturday morning. If you're into baking, you might want to try this insightful project that lets you witness the chemistry behind making muffins. You'll get...
+
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Determining Iodide Content of Salt

For Students 9th - 10th
In this week long "kitchen chemistry" project you will use chemicals from the supermarket to test for the presence of iodine and iodide in salt. These are common micronutrients added to some preparations of table salt. A materials list,...
+
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: How Much Energy Is Stored in Different Types of Food?

For Students 9th - 10th
In this project you'll learn a method for measuring how much chemical energy is available in different types of food. You will build your own calorimeter to capture the energy released by burning a small food item, like a nut or a piece...
+
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Using Daphnia to Monitor Water Toxicity

For Students 9th - 10th
In a bioassay, a living organism serves as a detector for toxins-the same way canaries were used in coal mines to detect invisible toxic gases. In this project, water fleas (Daphnia magna), a freshwater crustacean, are used in a bioassay...
+
Website
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Follow the Bouncing Ball: A Web Animation Project

For Students 6th - 8th
This project is a fun way to try your hand at programming. You'll learn how to create some simple animations, and you'll perform tests and make measurements to help you create more realistic-looking animations. All you need to get...
+
Lesson Plan
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Are There Dangerous Levels of Lead in Local Soil?

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
The element lead is a neurotoxin that is particularly dangerous to young children. Among other uses, lead compounds were common paint additives until being phased out for safer titanium-based additives beginning in the 1960's. Lead...
+
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Get Down and Dirty: How Does Soil Change With Depth?

For Students 6th - 8th
What covers less than 10% of the Earth's surface, yet is a vital natural resource for terrestrial life? What filters ground water and supports most of our food production, not to mention the production of building materials and paper?...
+
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Getting Carried Away: Measuring Soil Erosion

For Students 6th - 8th
When you think of environmental challenges facing the world, the first things that come to mind might be global warming, or loss of biodiversity, since these are often in the newspapers. A serious problem that you may not have heard...
+
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Mapping Troposhperic Ozone Levels Over Time

For Students 9th - 10th
Ozone in the stratosphere protects the earth by absorbing harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. However, when ozone occurs in the troposphere, it is harmful to health. In this project you can use data from EPA monitoring stations...
+
Website
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Image Compression vs. Image Quality: Finding the Best Tradeoff

For Students 6th - 8th
In this project you'll learn about how digital image files are encoded, and how digital images can be compressed so that the files take up less storage space and can be transmitted more quickly. You will also measure the quality of...
+
Website
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Programming Nanor Gs in a Virtual World

For Students 9th - 10th
Imagine yourself as a software engineer, a decade and a half from now. You are called upon to help solve the world energy crisis by programming nano-organisms (NANORGs) to extract energy from industrial sludge. Your program must be small...
+
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Which Orange Juice Has the Most Vitamin C?

For Students 9th - 10th
In this project you'll learn how to measure the amount of vitamin C in a solution using an iodine titration method. You will hypothesize which juice will contain the most vitamin C, and then compare the amount of vitamin C in three...
+
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: X Inactivation Marks the Spot for Cat Coat Color

For Students 9th - 10th
A tortoiseshell cat has two different fur colors, black or brown and red or orange. The gene that gives rise to the red or orange fur color is on the X chromosome. Female cats have two X chromosomes, while males only have one, which...
+
Activity
Discovery Education

Discovery Education: Science Fair Central Choose a Project Idea

For Students 3rd - 8th
This helpful page from Discovery Education provides science fair ideas in Life Science, Earth Science, and Biology. Testable questions to get you started are listed beneath each domain.
+
Handout
Science Struck

Science Struck: Make Invisible Ink for Your Science Fair Project

For Students 3rd - 5th
Three methods of making invisible ink are demonstrated with illustrations and step-by-step instructions.
+
Activity
Exploratorium

Exploratorium: Science Snacks: Snacks From a Z

For Students 9th - 10th
Here is a monumental list of ideas for science fair projects and experiments, organized alphabetically. Every one of them is a link to a full page, with pictures, of information about the idea. This site is a goldmine.
+
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Are Your Eyes Playing Tricks on You?

For Students 6th - 8th
Yogi Berra said "You can observe a lot by just watching." In this human biology science fair project, you will observe how your eyes perceive color by watching afterimages. Afterimages are what you see after staring at an object for...
+
Website
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Blast Into the Past Identify T. Rex's Closest Living Relative

For Students 9th - 10th
Believe it or not, scientists were recently able to recover tissue and partial sequence information for protein molecules from a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex fossil. In this genomics science fair project, you will use the T....
+
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Bat Detector: Listen to the Secret Sounds of Bats

For Students 9th - 10th
Sometimes bats can "whoosh" right by you, and not be seen. In this science fair project, you will be able to detect flying bats by listening in on the ultrasonic signals they produce to locate objects in their environment. The bat...
+
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Find Center of Milky Way Galaxy Using Globular Star Clusters

For Students 9th - 10th
The Milky Way is the edgewise view of our home galaxy, a disk made up of billions of stars. The Sun resides on one of the spiral arms of the disk, 30,000 light-years from the thick hub of the galaxy. The actual center, with a black hole...
+
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: The Power of Heat Is Right Under Your Feet!

For Students 3rd - 8th
You might know that we are able to get free energy from the Sun, the wind, and water, but we can also get free energy from Earth itself. This source of energy is called geothermal energy and it is all about taking advantage of the heat...
+
Website
Other

Canadian Mathematical Society: Math Projects for Science Fairs

For Students 3rd - 8th
Online resource if you want to do a math project for your science fair. French available by going to the Homepage.