No matter their area of study – engineering, physics or microbiology – science fair projects offer students an exciting way to express their interest. From grinding tablets with mortar and pestles, observing chemical reactions or even comparing paper airplane shapes – each experiment provides something memorable!
Unwow judges with an electrolysis-powered project that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. Or get inspired with other creative science fair ideas incorporating elements of chemistry, biology, physics and earth sciences!
Geodesic Dome
Geodesic domes are remarkable structures with low surface-to-volume ratios, making them suitable for enclosing vast spaces using relatively limited building materials. Furthermore, geodesic domes excel at shedding snow and wind; some models even stand up against hurricane-force winds! Some individuals even live inside dome homes!
Buckminster Fuller is widely recognized for popularizing dome structures and developing an interlinked strut system known as ‘tensegrity,” which evenly disperses stress so a dome can withstand pressure without cracking under pressure.
Build a small-scale geodesic dome to see how well it supports your weight, then gently press on it until its strength gives way.
Solar-Powered Desalination Device
Researchers from MIT and China have created a solar-powered device capable of turning salty sea water into drinkable drinking water without harming sea creatures. Multiple layers of flat solar evaporators and condensers work in concert to passively separate salt from water while keeping marine creatures safe.
Evaporation of seawater into small bottles heats their contents up as hotter water has higher density and rises towards the top of a jug, where it can then be collected as condensate.
Conduct several trials of your desalination device and record its condensate yield for each. Generate a bar graph showing your results and note any patterns you observe.
Newton’s Cradle
Newton’s Cradle is more than just an entertaining toy; it demonstrates two of Sir Isaac Newton’s Laws of Motion. The first deals with momentum – an object’s force when moving – while momentum deals with force applied when an object accelerates forwards or backwards.
The other principle involves energy conservation, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed but only changed forms. The cradle illustrates this by transforming potential energy from the first marble into kinetic energy which then flows down its line until finally shooting upward.
To create your own Newton’s Cradle, tie several bouncy balls to long side skewers at equal distance from one another and tape them in place.
Candle Relighting Demonstration
Recently, a video went viral that demonstrated an innovative method for relighting candles. It’s an eye-opening demonstration that perfectly showcases how combustion works while emphasizing the importance of being careful around flammable vapors.
Students looking to conduct this experiment first need to view a video showing a candle being relit in smoke, then set up their work area as fireproof and keep an extinguisher nearby.
This experiment is ideal for middle school science students. It combines math and biology, as students explore lung capacity. Furthermore, they’ll get their first taste of chemistry too!
Hydraulic Elevator
Home elevators provide a safe, efficient means of travel between floors. To install one in any building requires careful consideration of its layout, travel requirements and budget.
Hydraulic lifts use oil pumped by a pump into a cylinder to raise an elevator car, pushing a piston upward and raising it until reaching its destination. Once there, however, fluid is reversed so the car descends.
Holeless hydraulic elevators don’t require a machine room and can accommodate up to 60′ of travel. Their speed may be limited; to find the one best suited to your building, learn more about its different types of elevators.
Spherification
Spherification, also known as caviarification, is the practice of creating tiny caviar-like droplets of liquid that are popular in molecular gastronomy. Alginate is usually the gelling agent used for this process but other options such as carrageenan, gelatin or pectin may also work well; alginate is particularly popular as it can be heated without melting, while remaining stable once set.
To use this technique to produce caviar by spherification, first test and record the pH levels in your food solution with an official pH testing strip available from commercial vendors. If it’s too acidic for direct spherification, consider adding sequestrants such as sodium citrate to increase its pH value and continue with direct spherification.
Model Roller Coaster
This model utilizes the brick and plate construction method, making its assembly much faster than with paper and glue models. Furthermore, its design ensures that motor and sensor components remain hidden without interfering with its main coaster design.
Children will construct a model of a roller coaster to learn about gravity and energy required to go around a loop while having fun! After that, they can experiment with initial height of loop and explain how friction and speed affect results. Finally, they’ll present their findings to their classmates, detailing what they learned and how they analyzed data.