The Science fair project is a great tradition that helps students interact with the physical world. Projects test the boundaries of what kids know about science, and help kids understand important concepts through study and testing. Choosing the right project each year comes down to what your child is interested in. There is certainly no shortage of amazing projects for the science fair.
The Lego Mindstorm project allows users to build a contraption from Lego parts that can actually move. Students can use Mindstorm to program, with actual code, and give their built unit instructions. Possible hypotheses might include whether you can build a robot to gather things around the house, or showing how one can use code to interact with real-world objects.
A weather balloon kit can help students reach new heights, literally and figuratively. A weather balloon can travel to the Earth’s stratosphere, and you can outfit them with special cameras and GPS data loggers that record attributes of our atmosphere. The data logger will also tell students the distance the balloon travelled before its descent, and record information about the atmosphere like pressure and humidty. Attach a camera to take shots of your home town from high above it.
Have you ever experienced the feeling of weightlessness that can come from being in an elevator? Beginning with a Styrofoam cup, you can poke holes in the base and fill it with water to observe gravity at work. Then do the same experiment and drop the cup into a bowl filled with water. Observe the changes and note how gravity can affect weight in freefall.
Before we had crayons, ancient civilizations used naturally occurring elements to make colors. Plants like hemlock can produce a brown kind of dye. Blueberry and elderberry can create the color blue. This experiment tracks the colors that you can create using plant life that is native to your home town. See if you can create all of the colors in the rainbow with plants.
Pesticides are harmful, but we are forced to use them on large fields of fruit and vegetables. Home gardens constantly strive for natural ways to reduce the presence of pests and tend to a garden naturally. You can create an experiment that seeks to provide tips and ground rules for natural gardening. Maybe you can try to find the perfect compost heap, or create pest repellents from natural and non-toxic ingredients.
Sky-Probe makes high-altitude weather balloon kits for students and brands to launch weather balloons into the atmosphere. To launch your ideas, visit Sky-Probe.