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Science fair experiments

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Firstly, a science fair experiment should be something that the student is curious about—an experiment that he or she wants to do because they want to know the answer to a certain scientific question. So the first thing you will want to do when choosing a science fair experiment is ask the student what he or she wants to do. No ideas? Here are a few.

When I was in the fourth grade I wanted to know how airplanes can fly. My father said that that was too complicated a topic for our annual science fair, so we brainstormed some other ideas. The volcano one we already did in class? No, not that. Maybe I could do something with magnets—but we had already done a lot of stuff in class with magnets and they were starting to bore me. I couldn’t come up with anything.

A few days later when my dad and I went for a hike I noticed a cliff we always passed by when would hike this trail. I stopped to look at it. Pieces of dirt and rock had rolled off of it. They always rolled off. Lots of times, people had to move the rocks out of the way of the trail so that people could still walk on it.

“Why does it do that?” I asked my Daddy.
“Because of erosion,” he said, “would you like to do your science fair experiment on erosion?”
And I said yes, I did.

The premise was simple, to watch a piece of land or earth erode and explain why. But erosion takes place over many years and so we had to take our little piece of land and simulate activity that would cause erosion, primarily rain and wind. The factors that cause erosion are weather, wind, and gravity.

This example is not the only thing that a child could find interesting while on a walk in the woods. Some children might be curious about how the same plant would grow in different conditions

For this science fair experiment the child would have to have three plants, all planted at the same time. One plant could be placed in a room with plenty of light and very little noise—this will be the “control” plant. Another plant could be in a room with plenty of light and soft music constantly playing. And the third plant can be set up in a room with plenty of light and a lot of screaming or yelling in the background (music like heavy metal where the musicians shout and scream a lot might be the best way to do this). The experiment will prove which plant grows best. And the hypothesis could be that the plant that was in a space with soft music playing would grow better than the rest.

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