Cool science fair projects can be an engaging way to introduce children to STEM subjects and encourage STEM involvement in schools. Students can use these ideas to explore new subjects, bring an engaging project to their school science fair or even compete at national levels!
These projects aim to answer or resolve specific queries or solve specific problems in an easy and cost-effective way!
Cars
Cars have long been an indispensable component of everyday life for hundreds of millions of people worldwide, providing transport between destinations as well as providing employment in factories where these cars are made.
Students can use their cars as vehicles of exploration into physics and engineering science. Students can explore potential and kinetic energies, Newton’s laws of motion, forces of motion, alternative energy sources, engineering design principles such as autopilot braking gears and differentials as they explore these subjects with these STEM lessons and activities.
As part of their Safety Reaction Experiment with Three Headlights lesson, students experiment to see whether adding an extra headlight helps drivers react more quickly. Furthermore, this engaging STEM project allows them to investigate how physics affects car safety by designing and building bumpers on homemade cars to protect passengers.
Batteries
Batteries play a fundamental role in our everyday lives, from powering mobile phones and cars to starting our homes. While these batteries come in all sorts of different forms, their primary function remains unchanged: to convert chemical energy into electrical energy for use by devices.
A battery contains electrodes composed of various materials immersed in an electrolyte – or liquid that conducts electricity – that conduct electricity. These materials are selected and assembled so as to store enough energy in order to power an electronic device, such as a flashlight or hearing aid.
Primary and secondary batteries can be roughly divided into two main categories. Primary batteries, such as dry cells or (most) alkaline batteries, are single-use and cannot be recharged; rechargeable ones such as lead-acid and lithium-ion can be discharged and charged multiple times; during discharge chemical action between electrodes and electrolyte changes the composition of electrodes to restore original composition when recharged.
Geodesic Dome
Geodesic domes are sphere-like structures constructed out of interconnecting triangles. Most notable among their appearances at Walt Disney World’s Spaceship Earth at Epcot, geodesic domes can also be found at playgrounds and greenhouses.
Domes provide an energy efficient interior atmosphere by allowing air and energy to circulate unimpeded, providing natural heating and cooling systems.
Domes have been around for millennia. Since the Late Stone Age, dome-shaped tombs were used as places of rest for the dead and later popularly adopted into architecture both in Ancient Persia and Greece.
Solar S’More Oven
The Solar S’More Oven is an exciting STEM activity that lets you make delicious s’mores without using fire or electricity, providing an opportunity to teach children about energy usage and conservation.
In this activity, participants create a solar oven from a pizza box, aluminum foil and plastic wrap. A flap cut out of the lid is lined with aluminum foil to reflect light into the box while plastic wrap acts as greenhouse roof.
Put some black paper at the bottom of a box as a heat sink to absorb direct and indirect sunlight and make your solar oven work faster in terms of food preparation.
Static Electricity
Static electricity refers to a buildup of charges in objects that may cause sparks. It could be as mild as feeling an electrical charge when touching doorknobs or it could even become as dangerous as lightning strikes.
All matter is comprised of atoms whose charges balance each other out; protons (positive charge), neutrons (no charge) and electrons (negative charge). Most often, this balance between positive and negative atomic charges remains stable.
Rub two items together – for instance comb and hair – and some electrons from one item migrate over to the other one, creating a positive charge in one and negative in another.
Use this experiment to gain more knowledge about static electricity. Also use it to test different materials and see how well they “pull” or attract small streams of water.
Bacteria
Bacteria are single-celled organisms that don’t possess internal organelles like plants or animals do – their DNA simply floats freely within each cell, unrulily intertwining itself in an intricate network within their bodies.
Bacteria are ubiquitous organisms found everywhere from water and soil to animals and humans, often living off of them and providing essential ecosystem services. While they can sometimes cause infections, most bacteria are harmless and even beneficial in our environments.
Are You Studying Bacteria With Agar Powder? | STEM Nation! Studying bacteria is simple by cultivating and testing them on an agar surface. This project makes an excellent science fair project for kids or adults of any age and is quick and simple with just some basic materials needed – petri dishes with lids for storage as well as the powder form an essential start! To get your project underway, grab yourself some sterile petri dishes along with the necessary supplies (sterile petri dishes and powder form included!). To get underway grab some sterile petri dishes along with powder for testing bacteria!
Newspaper Engineering
Newspaper engineering provides students with an exciting way to explore how one material can create something. Students can design and construct 3-dimensional structures from newspaper, tape, and scissors.
Paper engineers specialize in developing lightweight, eco-friendly packaging made of renewable fiber-based material. Additionally, they create customized solutions for pharmaceutical firms and publishing houses.
As part of their middle school science curriculum, students construct model towers out of limited supplies such as newspaper and tape. Their challenge lies in building towers for height, stability, strength, as well as resilience against an imaginary wind load simulation.
Lightning Storm
Lighting is one of Earth’s most spectacular natural phenomena, visible during volcanic eruptions, forest fires, surface nuclear detonations tests and heavy snowstorms – as well as in thunderstorms!
Lightning strikes when there is an imbalance of charges between clouds in the sky and on Earth’s surface, such as thunderclouds with lots of negative electrons at their base.
Kids will love participating in this fascinating science fair project as it will demonstrate how static electricity works! Additionally, this demonstration will enable them to understand why lightning occurs.
Storms create positive and negative charges which build up in clouds, drawing opposite charges closer together (opposites attract). When running across carpet, touching doorknobs or even rubbing balloons against yourself, you are experiencing static electricity!
Wind Power
Wind energy can provide an alternative source of electricity that helps lower carbon emissions and global warming, while powering local communities and homes in remote locations where solar or geothermal options may not exist.
Wind turbines harness the energy of wind by collecting it in one area and channeling it towards a vertical shaft which turns a generator, producing electricity in turn. To harness its potential, these machines capture airflow using bladed towers topped with tall towers topped with blades designed to catch it and turn a generator for power production.
Students tasked with this science fair project will design and assemble multiple rotor blade designs to determine which produces more power at different wind speeds. Their goal should be to find designs with maximum rotations per second to produce additional electricity.
Space
Space is one of the most beloved topics at science fairs, and it’s clear why. Its vastness can be breathtaking while at the same time being difficult to grasp.
NASA has provided students with various space-themed projects designed to help visualize the universe. These projects include an “Universe Slime” experiment that attempts to show how far the universe has expanded since the Big Bang and a constellation circuit paper that shows how stars orbit one another.
Make a solar system model for display in the classroom or on a wall–it will show students just how far apart planets are and how the sun affects them! This activity can be accomplished on multiple sheets of paper or scaled up for wall display.