Fascinating Science: Must-Try Easy Elementary Science Projects
Take a look at some very easy elementary science projects. They are really interesting!
ScienceStruck Staff
Last Updated: Jun 18, 2018
How can a rose turn blue? Don't seek books. Just experiment! Take a white colored rose and cut the end of its stem at an angle of 45 degrees. Take a vase and fill it with lukewarm water. Add blue color to the water and place your rose in the vase. Keep the arrangement undisturbed overnight and you will see a beautiful blue rose in the flowerpot.
This is because the vascular stem of the rose draws in water and nutrients from the water below. The water reaches its petals giving the petals the coloration!
Wondering how to distinguish between a raw egg and a hard-boiled one? It's easy with an experiment. Try spinning both the eggs. One of the eggs will not spin as readily and easily as the other. Lo! The one, which spins faster, is the boiled egg!
We know of the litmus test that serves as an indicator of acids and bases. But an anthocyanin called flavin that is present in red cabbage can act as litmus! The flavin pigment in red cabbage is water-soluble.
So take two cups of chopped cabbage in a container and add boiling water to it. Wait till the water becomes reddish purple in color. On adding an acidic substance to the solution, the solution will turn purple while bases will turn it to a yellowish green color.
You can build an 'Invisible Written Communication System'. Sounds interesting? Then try this... Help yourself for a plain paper, a paintbrush and lemon juice. Dip the paintbrush into the lemon juice and write a message on the paper with the brush. Allow the paper to dry. Now ask your friends to read that message. It is obviously invisible.
If your friends complain of not seeing anything on the paper, quickly bake or heat the paper. The heat will make the dried lemon juice reappear on the paper making your message visible.
Make a robot hand as your project. All you need is cardboard, paper, straws, strings, caulk, scissors and glue. First cut out a hand pattern from the paper. Squeeze the caulk of about the diameter of a pencil from the tip of each of your fingers and the thumb to the base of the palm.
Next, lay the string on the finger portion of the caulk beads. Take a cardboard and squeeze the caulk in between the cardboard and the hand pattern cut out from paper. Now glue straws onto the pattern. Run caulk along the straws and cover them with caulk.
Cut the parts of straws that jut out without cutting the string and cut out the cardboard in the shape of your palm. Cut notches for bending of fingers and thumb. Run strings through the straws. Pulling these strings will control finger and thumb movements.
Making a ball is a really easy elementary science project. Get aluminum foil and roll it into a ball. Take elastic rubber bands and stretch them around the ball. Take as many elastic bands as you can and the ball gets bigger. You can make it grow till it bounces. The ball is ready to be played with.
This is some fun with magnetism! Take a fairly thick and long straw. Fetch two circular magnets each with a hole in the center. Place a straw through the holes in the magnets such that the two magnets slide along the straw.
Cut out any animal from a piece of paper. Glue it on one of the magnets without obstructing the hole in the magnets. The animal will appear to be jumping due to the forces between the two magnets as they slide along the straw.
Medicine bottles sometime have a note saying that it is made out of UV Blocking plastic. Place UV Energy Beads in the bottle to test if its plastic really blocks ultraviolet rays. If they do not change color, it confirms that the bottle has blocked UV rays.
Another easy demonstration of static electricity developed by Bruce Jenny, can seem magical. See how... Get PVC pipe and a Styrofoam sheet. Cut out a band from the sheet. Rub fur along the band to build static charge. Similarly build a charge onto the pipe.
Toss up the band with the help of a pencil and place the pipe underneath. Due to the charges produced on both the objects, the band will whirl above the pipe. The principle that is proved through the project is that like charges repel each other.
Elementary science projects can be as interesting as the ones mentioned above. Science projects can be fun-filled and innovative. They illustrate fundamental as well as complex scientific facts creatively. Science has always fascinated me. How about you?
