Students will surely impress judges with these incredible science fair projects! Ranging from an intriguing pinhole camera design to discovering why fruit ripens faster, there is something here for every participant in this fair.
Check out the chemical reaction between baking soda and vinegar or see your borax crystals grow overnight (turn them into an eye-catching wind catcher!). Our collection of tried-and-tested experiments is sure to dazzle!
1. Water Density Experiment
With just a few common kitchen ingredients, this water experiment demonstrates how density affects floating and sinking objects, as well as dissolving substances into it to form colorful layers like an underwater rainbow in a jar!
This density science experiment is an engaging way to demonstrate how oil and water don’t mix, providing an interesting visual depiction of ocean currents at work. Plus, it features an exciting chemical reaction which turns a bottle into a mesmerizing DIY lava lamp!
2. Naked Egg Experiment
This classic kitchen experiment provides an engaging way to learn more about osmosis.
Place a raw egg in a glass container of vinegar (enough to cover its entirety) and watch as its bubbles appear! Your kids are sure to be amazed.
After 24 hours have passed, switch out the vinegar with new fresh vinegar and continue observing your egg regularly. Encourage children to touch, hold, feel, examine and handle it; touch its textures; identify its parts; bounce it on its side to determine how far you can drop it without it breaking apart!
3. Water Salt Freezing Experiment
Kids conducting this simple but fascinating STEM experiment will discover that salt affects the freezing point of water. They can predict when their saltwater will freeze, then compare their prediction with actual results.
Have students fill cups halfway with hot and cold water before placing them in the freezer. Instruct them to check for frozen states every 25 minutes, recording their observations so you can use this data to create a bar graph.
4. Geodesic Dome
Students construct a dome that illustrates tension and compression to demonstrate its power at science fair, supporting most provincial/state curricula’s Structures and Mechanisms section.
Richard Buckminster Fuller pioneered geodesic domes, structures constructed using interlocking triangles to form rigid yet strong geodesic structures. These domes can be found everywhere from large commercial offices to homes.
In this experiment, you will test the strength of a dome by increasing its diameter while keeping its height unchanged and measuring how much weight it can support. Will its strength strengthen or weaken with expansion?
5. Solar Energy Experiment
Explore solar energy through this hands-on experiment! Children will discover that different colored ice cubes melt at different rates when exposed to the heat from the sun’s rays.
Discover how solar cells produce electricity with this simple experiment! From roof top solar panels to powering highway marker lights at night, solar cells create power through this solar cell experiment.
Utilize solar energy to build a robot or oven, or evaluate existing solar cells and panels. Check out more fun energy experiments for kids on this website!
6. Heat Capture Experiment
As a stunning science project, try this innovative experiment which illustrates how heat energy can be transferred in various forms and also teaches about liquid physical properties.
Make music an integral part of plant growth and development with this eighth grade science experiment! Students utilize a simple water pump to test how different genres affect plant development.
Engineers love creating bottle rockets; this classic high school project brings together both physics and chemistry for an eye-catching chemical reaction that propels film canisters skyward.
7. Weight Test Experiment
Students will enjoy exploring kinetic friction by comparing how much force is necessary to pull two sheets out of an interleaved stack of paper. This experiment can also be adjusted to explore factors like speed and roughness of surfaces.
Kids Activities Blog’s classic experiment for teaching DNA extraction gives students hands-on practice at extracting DNA, and then using that extracted material to grow plants of their own using various kinds of water or soda solutions! Finally, students can compare how each variation affects plant growth – all while having fun!
8. Solar-Powered Desalination Device
There are some classic science fair projects that always make an appearance at school fairs, so why not put your own spin on one of them?
Explore how different ratios of chemicals impact reaction by conducting this variation of the classic baking soda and vinegar experiment.
Or build an engineering project like Newton’s Cradle using HubPages that also demonstrates momentum; or explore capillary action and absorption with this Kaliedoscope project for an unforgettable showpiece effect!