Science fairs provide an exciting opportunity to investigate our world through experimentation. But coming up with innovative project ideas for high school science fairs can be challenging.
Have a blast with one of these easy and engaging experiments designed specifically for 8th graders! Test an object’s center of gravity to understand how they remain balanced.
Build a Hand
Designing and creating a robotic hand can be an engaging STEM project for students of any age, teaching them about prosthetics, engineering, and scientific inquiry. Science Buddies project “Grasping with Straws” offers an easy way for them to build one using drinking straws; other materials may also be used.
Do this experiment to experience the power of momentum. Additionally, it teaches about energy and friction.
Build a Bottle Rocket
Bottle rockets utilize chemical reactions to propel themselves upward, with air pressure from a pump generating an action force on water that pushes back against it and launches the bottle rocket.
Experiment by adding fins and/or a parachute to your bottle rocket to see their effect on its flight. Furthermore, measure results across different air pressures to compare results.
Build a Heart-Rate Monitor
Students fascinated with human biology can use DIY monitors to examine the impact of exercise on heart rate. Students measure pulse rates during various activities and create line graphs of their results.
Discover how much energy it takes to roll a ball on surfaces with different textures. This classic physics experiment helps students understand potential and kinetic energies. Complete instructions and materials are included.
Build a Car
Prioritize projects within your school’s time frame when planning a science fair project. Speak with teachers or counselors regarding this, and ask the science fair coordinator (find out who they are) if he/she could review your idea for age appropriateness and feasibility before beginning.
Build a car to explore potential and kinetic energy engineering concepts while teaching gravity! This STEM challenge provides an engaging lesson about engineering concepts while teaching gravity at the same time!
Build a Battery
Discover how batteries work with this super fun and easy science experiment designed specifically for kids! This hands-on demonstration provides a fun way to introduce electricity as part of science fair projects or homeschool learning programs.
Make a simple battery from everyday items and use it to power a LED light bulb in this fun science lesson about alternative energy sources and engineering team building activities! This exercise is also an invaluable engineering team building exercise!
Build a Flying Machine
Kids at this age are ready to experiment with some pretty fascinating concepts, and scientific experiments are an ideal way to demonstrate the power of different forces such as gravity and air pressure.
Try having students build and experiment with a mini drone made out of popsicle sticks to see how weight affects flight and speed; or take things further by having them design an alarm system.
Build an Optical Illusion
Discover how to create a spinning color wheel and experiment with optical illusions. Investigate why our eyes and brain process visual information in certain ways – for instance when railroad tracks appear to converge from afar, or why holes in your hand appear solid even after closing them!
Explore black-and-white optical illusions to observe how color impacts their difficulty of solving an illusion, as well as apparent motion with flip books, thaumatropes, and zoetropes.
Build a Spherification Machine
Students love playing with slime, and this 7th grade science experiment allows them to experiment using dry ice. Along the way, they gain valuable experience learning about chemical reactions as well as physical principles when investigating how the mass of objects changes over time.
This reverse spherification science project delves deeper into this same process but using different food items. Students measure the weight of yogurt raviolis over time to observe how sodium alginate coating affects its weight.
Build a Hydraulic Elevator
Place the lifts in a vise, then test each with weights before recording your findings in your lab notebook in an Excel table.
Use this experiment to demonstrate the concept of force multiplication. For example, small amounts of water may produce greater pressure than large volumes because force is distributed more evenly over a smaller area.
Build a Snake
Use this easy experiment to make an uncoiled carbon sugar snake made of carbon sugar molecules that appears out of thin air! It’s a fun and engaging way to learn about chemical reactions!
Kids will love this hands-on investigation of touch and how it affects reptiles’ senses. Additionally, they can observe snakes at their local zoo or pet store to gather more information (although be sure to inquire ahead of time as each facility may have specific policies regarding animal handling).