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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 compressed. You will also measure the quality of compressed and uncompressed images, which will give you important insights into the tradeoffs between file size...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Rainbow Fire

For Students 9th - 10th
Astronomers can determine the atomic composition of distant stars by measuring the spectrum of light emitted by the star. Sound cool? Well in this project you can do something similar by observing the color of flames when various...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Levitating Magnets: Floating Isn't Just for Magicians

For Students 3rd - 5th
If you ever seen a magician float an object in the air, you might think that levitation is just a magic trick, but the truth is you can use an invisible physical force to levitate a magnet. Try this simple, week-long science project to...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Testing a Parabolic Reflector With Light From an Led

For Students 9th - 10th
You can see examples of parabolic reflectors in flashlights, car headlights, satellite TV antennas, and even on the sidelines at football games. In this project, you can use an LED and a simple photodector to investigate this concept.
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Dog Toys: What Makes One a Favorite or a Flop to Fido?

For Students 3rd - 8th
It seems as though dogs, like people, have definite preferences for their play things. This fun project investigates what makes a toy interesting to a dog. In these experiments, you and your dog can have some fun while you learn about...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: How Does the Intensity of Light Change With Distance?

For Students 9th - 10th
How far would you have to travel so that the light of the full sun would provide "daylight" no brighter than twilight on Earth? This project describes a method to verify the inverse square law: how light, sound, electrical signals, and...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: How Do Baseball Stadium Dimensions Affect Batting Statistics?

For Students 9th - 10th
Here's a fun project that combines baseball and math. Major League baseball is played in ballparks that have their own individual quirks when it comes to the exact layout of the field. Fenway Park in Boston has the famous "Green Monster"...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: The Physics of Cheating in Baseball

For Students 9th - 10th
This week-long project asks you to examine the density of certain materials, such as "corked" baseball bats and regular baseball bats, and whether they can cause a ball to travel different distances.
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Unit Plan
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Attack of the Killer Cabbage Clones

For Students 3rd - 5th
Do you like to watch outdated science fiction and cheesy horror movies? Many fictional tales of cloned organisms have been created based upon the scientific method for cloning animals or plants. In the real world, the cloning of plants...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Riding on Air Build a Real Hovercraft

For Students 9th - 10th
You will get to build a working hovercraft that will glide over surfaces on a cushion of air in this week long science project. With the use of some power tools, you will create your hovercraft, and ultimately understand how air...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Liver Stinks!

For Students 3rd - 5th
Sometimes science can be really messy or use pretty disgusting ingredients. That is what it takes to understand how the world works, even if the experiment isn't pretty. If you like chemical reactions that stink and ooze foamy bubbles...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Building Structures: It's a Slippery Slope

For Students 6th - 8th
All structures require a foundation to keep them from falling down. This is especially important when a structure is built on a hill or on a slope. In this science project, you will build a tower of Lego Duplos on slopes with different...
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Website
Bill Nye

Bill Nye: Bill Nye Online Science Lab

For Students 9th - 10th
Bill Nye's Online Science Lab offers home demos for planetary, physical, and life science, a "Question of the Week," e-cards, episode guides, and lots of fun facts. A great resource for students looking for science-fair project or lab...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Natural Antimicrobial Agents

For Students 9th - 10th
This abstract asks you to discover what sources you can test for antimicrobial action by culturing bacteria in the presence of an extract from a source you hypothesize to have antimicrobial properties. Antimicrobial properties have been...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies:from Your John to the School Lawn:is Recycled Water Really Safe?

For Students 9th - 10th
Find out whether reclaimed water is really safe by following the guidelines of the Science Buddies project.
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Air Particles and Air Quality

For Students 3rd - 5th
What does the phrase, "Like a breath of fresh air," mean to you? This common phrase can have different meanings: calming, relaxing, invigorating, energizing or clean. In this experiment you will test the quality of air by measuring the...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: The Big Dig

For Students 3rd - 5th
Even though many cities have recycling programs, a lot of trash still ends up in the dump. Find out which materials will break down and which materials won't. Will the results of this experiment change which products you often buy?
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Font and File Size

For Students 3rd - 5th
What is your favorite font? In this experiment, you will test how the font style of the letters (or characters) in a file might change the size of the file.
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: How Many Letters?

For Students 3rd - 5th
Can you remember all of your ABC's? Computers need to "remember" letters too. Every time we use a computer to write a story, the computer needs to "remember" the letters in the story by saving them to the computer's memory as a file. In...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Getting More Out of Less : Google Hits and Search Terms

For Students 3rd - 5th
Google is the name of the most often used search engine on the Internet. "Googol" is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. It's a very large number. This experiment will help you test different search terms and find out.
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: How Does Soil Affect the P H of Water?

For Students 6th - 8th
Did you know that soils can be alkaline, neutral, or acidic? Most plants grow best in soil near neutral pH, but some plants prefer slightly acidic and others slightly alkaline soil. What is the pH of the soil in your garden? What happens...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Cd Burning: Take It to the Edge

For Students 3rd - 5th
Did you know that you can tell how much information is on a CD-R without even using a computer? Find out how in this "reflective" experiment.
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: I'm Trying to Breathe Here! Dissolved Oxygen vs. Temperature

For Students 9th - 10th
To survive, we need oxygen in the air we breathe. Oxygen is also essential for most aquatic organisms, but there is much less oxygen available in water than in air. Learn how to measure dissolved oxygen and then see how oxygen...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Image File Types and Size

For Students 3rd - 5th
There are so many different ways to save an image file it can be mind boggling. If you want to know whether to save your favorite photo as a jpeg, bmp, gif, or tiff then try this simple experiment.