Please help us with some cool elementary school science fair projects!

October 3, 2016 1:01 PM

I have 2 girls in 5th grade and 1 son in 3rd. We'd like to get an early start on the projects for time management reasons, and would love your suggestions for great science fair projects for them - interests and past projects inside.

In my house, the science fair is a big deal. My 8-year old son has dyslexia, so school is challenging for him - but he loves science, so the science fairs have been really great for boosting his self-esteem. (The first year he entered he won one of the special awards at the district-wide science fair + $100, and he practically levitated off the stage after accepting his award. The next year he won another award + $75, so he now considers himself a paid scientist and is ever so proud of himself, which we love because he rarely has the opportunity to excel in school-related activities.) Our 10-year old girls like the science fair OK and have gone on to the district-wide fair as well, but don't feel nearly as strongly about them as our son does.

With that said, we're looking for great projects for them to do this year and would love some suggestions!

Past projects
Son:
- 1st grade: What makes the best homemade emergency candle? (Made and compared candles made of butter, cheese wax etc.)
- 2nd grade: What makes the best homemade solar oven? (Made and compared solar ovens made of pizza box, insulated box, reflective funnel)
Daughter 1:
- 3rd grade: How does camouflage work? (Made a color test for people showing that similar colors get picked least)
- 4th grade: Do plants really need water? (Gave different liquids to 8 plants - milk, oil, vinegar, gatorade etc.)
Daughter 2:
- 3rd grade: How do stalactites/stalagmites grow? (made stalactites/mites with Epsom salt water)
- 4th grade: Cookie chemistry (made 8 batches of cookies, each leaving out an ingredient like flour, sugar, eggs etc.)

Interests
Son - science (particularly anything that explodes or uses fire), zombies, nerf guns, legos, minecraft
Daughter 1 - animals, animals, animals, art, creative writing
Daughter 2 - cooking, archery, math

Resources
We have a dog and just got 2 rabbits, so anything fun involving them would be great, particularly for daughter 1.
We have time for time-consuming experiments, since we're starting early.
We have access to craft stores etc. and are willing to go up to $100 budget on each if needed, but obviously cheaper is better.

Restrictions
Experiments need to be age-appropriate for 3rd and 5th grades - not too easy, but not high school level, either.
Something they can do with minimal help from adults - I always help, of course, but it's the kids' projects and I won't do them for them.
Something fun!

Mefites are the best at this sort of stuff - I can't wait to hear your suggestions!

posted by widdershins to Science & Nature (13 answers total)

Training the dog or rabbits to do tricks, or run a maze, can be a good example of psychology science, which is usually pretty sparse in science fair exhibits. Maybe find which way the animal learns fastest; praise for going the right way on the maze vs "negative reinforcent" (like telling the animal "No!" When they go the wrong way). "Don't Shoot The Dog" by Karen Pryor is a great start.
posted by The otter lady at 1:10 PM on October 3, 2016

I did a science fair project where I bought some agar and Petri dishes, then transferred bacteria from various locations around the house to the agar dishes using scotch tape. Then I documented the bacterial growth over a few weeks. It's really very easy to do, and it's absolutely fascinating. (I did this in 4th grade.)
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:40 PM on October 3, 2016

I did a study of siphoning in 5th grade. I was able to obtain a few different diameters of flexible plastic tubing and then measured how fast each was able to empty a cup of water.

Then I isolated the height of the top cup of water to see if the steepness of the tube made a difference.
posted by TomFoolery at 4:08 PM on October 3, 2016

For the one that likes archery and math, how about an exploration of precision vs accuracy, and various distributions?
posted by batter_my_heart at 4:51 PM on October 3, 2016

They may not be of too much help this time but here are links to three PDF files "Chemistry in the Toy Store" they go into the science behind how a bunch of toys work...could be some useful starting points for this or future projects:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
posted by Captain_Science at 6:25 PM on October 3, 2016

I have no idea if this is a thing do-able at that age with a microscope and such, but how about something involving culturing bacteria from the dog? OR, better yet, if you can get some run-of-the-mill-household bacteria, find out if it's true that dog salive is anti-septic. Add the dog's drool to a petri dish of saliva and see if it kills more than a control substance (water? human saliva?) They say that's one reason dogs lick their wounds. Is it true?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:52 PM on October 3, 2016

Who's mouth has more bacteria - mine or my dog's? Swab on agar and watch it grow. Photograph the Petri dishes.

Who eats more based on their body weight a dog or a rabbit? Weigh on a kitchen scale the mass of food the pets eat each day for a week. Have them research metabolism.

Make observations about animal behavior like Jane Goodall - fun if you can go to a zoo or aquarium multiple times and have the kids spend time really watching a small group of animals and make notes.
posted by Edward L at 6:54 PM on October 3, 2016

Math and archery - which angle will cause the arrow to travel the farthest.

Could also do it with a nerf gun.
posted by Edward L at 7:03 PM on October 3, 2016

Daughter 1: compare the dog's sense of smell to the rabbits' by having them detect treats by approaching/knocking over boxes. Measure and compare how frequently each animal approaches the correct box on the first time or not. Alternatively, compare the dog's ability to sniff out snack foods to a human subject (such as her brother).
posted by deludingmyself at 9:25 PM on October 3, 2016

Ooh, another great one would be a blind taste test. Kid can pick out some generic vs brand-name store foods: cereal, soda, what have you. Blindfold a series of willing test subjects, and have them guess whether they're drinking Coke vs Generic Cola, Cheerios vs. Toasted Oats, Oreos vs Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, etc. For added scientific rigor, switch up the testing from "guess the generic" (A/B testing, where you have a 50% chance of being right by chance!) to a triangle test, in which you give each participant three samples and ask them to tell you which one is different from the other two.

Several different questions you could ask with this, like: can family members tell the difference between branded vs. generic at all? What brands of snack foods aren't worth the extra $$? Are different knockoff products easier/harder to distinguish from the original?

And for added fun if you have the budget, bring a very small version of one of the tests (Cheerios would be a good one) to the science fair and let people passing by the poster see if they can guess which one is the brand name.
posted by deludingmyself at 9:47 PM on October 3, 2016

Thank you guys - I marked as best answers the ones I figured my kids would be most excited about. Definitely welcome any other ideas as well!
posted by widdershins at 7:55 AM on October 4, 2016

I did a science fair experiment in 6th grade about which paper towel was the most absorbent. You can look at a the winner a couple different ways -- which is the most absorbent overall, and which is the most cost-effective. It was fun because it had real-life implications, and I still buy the most cost-effective brand! Plus you can obviously put the leftover supplies to good use.

My dad's a doctor who does research, so I'll be the first to say that he was a little over-involved in my science fair projects and I'm not sure if it's grade-level appropriate for a 5th grader?
posted by radioamy at 10:51 AM on October 4, 2016

For my son's 2nd grade one last year he tested different shaped parachutes. We made the parachutes out of a plastic tablecloth and attached them with string to washers then did timed trials to see how long each parachute took to land.
posted by LKWorking at 10:54 AM on October 4, 2016