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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: How Fast Does an Alka Seltzer Tablet Make Gas?

For Students 9th - 10th
This is a straightforward, fun project to measure the rate of the chemical reaction that occurs when Alka-Seltzer tablets are plopped into water. You'll track the volume of carbon dioxide gas produced at regular intervals after the...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Can You Change the Rate of a Chemical Reaction?

For Students 9th - 10th
The ingredients in Alka-Seltzer tablets undergo a chemical reaction that produces carbon dioxide gas as soon as the tablets hit water. Do you think you can cause the tablets to produce gas faster by breaking them into smaller pieces...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Caffeine and Heart Rate: A Pharmacological Study Using Daphnia

For Students 9th - 10th
In this project, water fleas (Daphnia magna), a semi-transparent freshwater crustacean, are used to study the effects of caffeine on heart rate. You do not have to learn how to take a crustacean's pulse though, because you can actually...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: When Science Is Sweet: Growing Rock Candy Crystals

For Students 3rd - 5th
Though rock candy seems to be a simple enough treat, it is also pretty interesting to make. Crystallized sugar that can be grown from a sugar-water solution is just how rock candy is made. In this experiment, you will learn to make your...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Do Hurricanes Cool the Ocean?

For Students 9th - 10th
If you've ever so much as watched a news clip about a hurricane, you probably know that hurricanes draw their power from warm ocean waters. If that is true, does it mean that hurricanes actually cool the ocean down when they pass...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: What Are You Blubbering About?

For Students 3rd - 8th
Baby Beluga may swim in the deep blue sea, but the song doesn't mention how cold it is out there. Find out in this short project how a bit of blubber can be a useful adaptation when the water is ice cold.
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Now You're Cooking!

For Students 6th - 8th
Here is a project that uses direct solar power, gathering the sun's rays for heating and sterilizing water or cooking. It's a low-cost technology that seems to have everything going for it. Use this project to find out if it works, and...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Blowing Bottletops: Making Music With Glass Bottles

For Students 6th - 8th
This is a musical project about the resonance of closed-end air columns. Organ pipes, flutes, and brass instruments are examples of musical instruments of this type. In this project, you'll learn how the pitch of the note produced...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Yeast Reproduction in Sugar Substitutes

For Students 9th - 10th
There's nothing quite like the smell of fresh-baked bread to make your mouth water. As any baker can tell you, you can't bake bread without yeast. This project makes clever use of bread dough to measure yeast reproduction three different...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Getting Critical Over Colloids

For Students 3rd - 5th
What is a colloid? If you have made Oobleck out of corn starch and water, then you know that a colloid is a mixture that acts like a solid and a liquid at the same time. This activity helps you determine the critical factors that...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: How Salty Is the Sea?

For Students 3rd - 5th
Have you ever been swimming at the beach and gotten some water in your mouth by mistake? Then you know that the ocean is very salty. Bodies of freshwater also contain some salt, but much less compared to oceans. In this experiment you...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: How Does Color Affect Heating by Absorption of Light?

For Students 9th - 10th
Light is an example of an electromagnetic wave. Electromagnetic waves can travel through the vacuum of interstellar space. They do not depend on an external medium-unlike a mechanical wave such as a sound wave which must travel through...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Saturated Solutions: Measuring Solubility

For Students 9th - 10th
Many essential chemical reactions and natural biochemical processes occur in liquid solutions, so understanding the chemical properties of liquid solutions is fundamentally important. This project will challenge you to discover how much...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Paper Chromatography: Advanced Version 2

For Students 6th - 8th
Chromatography is a method used to separate mixtures of compounds and to identify each compound in the mixture. You may have separated the different inks in a black marker by using a strip of paper and water. There are many different...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Radiant Radish Seeds

For Students 3rd - 5th
We all know that plants need sunlight and water to grow big and tall. But did you know that inside seeds are baby plants, and that the fragile baby plant inside the seed needs to be protected? If you've ever had a sunburn, you also know...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Put Your Water to Work: Using Hydropower to Lift a Load

For Students 3rd - 8th
Water creates a lot of energy, just look at the Grand Canyon. In this science fair project, you will demonstrate the power of water by converting the kinetic energy in moving water to mechanical energy, which will lift a small weight.
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Put Some Energy Into It! Use a Calorimeter to Measure

For Students 3rd - 8th
In this science fair project, use a calorimeter with an attached heating element to measure how water responds to added thermal energy.
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Wild Winds: Detecting Turbulence Around Structures

For Students 3rd - 8th
Watch out. It's Eddy Vortex, Superhero. He swirls, he tumbles, he churns up air and water. OK, maybe eddies and vortices aren't exactly superheroes, but they are powerful regions of air and water flow that you have to watch out for in...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Foggy Forecasting: What Weather Factors Create Radiation Fog?

For Students 9th - 10th
The poet Carl Sandburg wrote, "The fog comes on little cat feet". In this weather science fair project, you'll discover why this beautiful, quiet creeper appears on some days, and not on others. If you are fascinated by fog and weather...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Dust Busters: How No Plow Farmers Try to Save Our Soil

For Students 3rd - 5th
In this environmental science fair project, students will build models of fields prepared by plow-based and no-till methods, and see which ones are best at retaining soil moisture and preventing surface runoff.
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Activity
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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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Heavy Metals and Aquatic Environments

For Students 3rd - 8th
You might know that lead can be toxic, and that you can get lead poisoning from eating or inhaling old paint dust. Lead is called a heavy metal, and there are other sources of heavy metals that can be toxic, too. Silver, copper, mercury,...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Bubble Ology

For Students 3rd - 5th
Making your own bubble solution is fun, but sometimes the bubbles don't seem to work as well as the solutions you buy in the store. In this experiment you can test if adding corn syrup or glycerin to your bubble solution will make it...
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Unit Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Life Science

For Teachers 6th - 8th
This unit covers the processes of photosynthesis, extinction, biomimicry and bioremediation. In the first lesson on photosynthesis, students learn how engineers use the natural process of photosynthesis as an exemplary model of a complex...