Comments on: Science fair season is upon us.

Science fair season is upon us.

pjern — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 18:51:40 -0800

Science fair projects for kids. 128 pages of science fair projects for kids, graded by difficulty. 40 more experiments. This has been your Metafilter parenting resource for the week of February 9-13.

By: onlyconnect

onlyconnect — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 19:11:27 -0800

Hey, thanks! I am checking these out for my Kindergartener, whose first ever science project is due next week, if she wants to do one. We were looking at ideas earlier this week and were having some trouble arriving at a good one. She rejected the omnipresent "sort M&M package by color to see which colors are most popular" (she hates M&M's), as well as baking a bunch of batches of cookies with one ingredient missing (flour, sugar, chocolate chips, salt, butter, etc.) to see what difference each ingredient made to the final product -- she was afraid she'd have to taste a bunch of disgusting cookies so that was nixed. We were close to settling on "will this float or not?" and now here is this new resource, so, thanks! Here are some pretty good youtube videos of science experiments for kids that my daughter and I have been watching -- probably mostly designed for young kids, I think I searched on kindergarten science experiments originally. Thanks for the post! Very timely for us!

By: localroger

localroger — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 19:17:38 -0800

Measuring trends are a good thing most middle schoolers can do. Some years ago my boss asked me if I had any ideas for his kid, who wanted to do something involving the family business of weighing and measurement. (I placed in the ISEF myself in 1981.) I suggested that, since unlike most teenagers she had access to precision balances, she take a bunch of change and graph the change of weight by age as coins wear down. She could then whimsically project the date at which the coins would just disappear. I didn't warn them and she spontaneously discovered the early 80's change of metal formulation of the penny, and got serious props for her understanding of the ratio math which she worked out for herself without any help. She's now in her mid 20's and working in a technical field.

By: Countess Elena

Countess Elena — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 19:23:23 -0800

Good luck! Pop that corn!

By: If only I had a penguin...

If only I had a penguin... — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 19:26:09 -0800

These all reinforce my science fair project trauma and resentment. After I moved and switched schools, every science project I did was woe-fully underappreciated relative to other students for (I believe) two reasons: first, my boards weren't that pretty. Other kids cut out better construction paper letters than I did. Second, my science projects were actual science projects: I had a question I didn't know the answer to, a hypothesis, and an actual experiment with control group etc. Yeah, my questions were lame, but they were actual science questions and actual hypotheses, not just "I built a battery." and every year the kid who built a battery or a volcano and designed a beautiful board around it won and my project, which actually used the scientific method, was treated as mediocre and substandard. Anyway, most of these aren't science questions, they're just build-a-battery projects. Tell your kids to go forth and ask a question and design an experiment to answer it. And if their teacher doesn't like it, then explain to the teacher how doing science works, because it seems some of them don't know. Bitter? Who's bitter? It's not that I'm bitter, it's that I was persecuted and treated unjustly for science. Ok, maybe a little bitter.

By: Biblio

Biblio — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 19:36:56 -0800

I am very involved in STEM and STEAM programming in the public library and I am on a one woman crusade to ban the word "experiment" from this kind of activity. We all know its going to turn into Oobleck. Unless you have some new hypothesis about polymers don't call it an experiment! I am currently running a STEAM program for 3-5 year olds that mostly involves showing them the materials and then getting out of the way! It's much more fun than I remember science being when I was a kid.

By: localroger

localroger — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 19:39:33 -0800

IOIHApenguin, I feel your pain. My father judged the regional science fair (and yes, he recused himself the year I was in competition in his category). I had a bit of a shocke after winning my first HS fair with a "build a _____" project to find that the standards for the regionals were, well, what you were doing. But a lot of judges at the school level didn't get that and were awarding on construction and presentation skill. I am pretty sure it was my own performance at the regionals once I realized what they were about that adjust the attitudes of my school judges, at least for a few years.

By: localroger

localroger — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 19:49:30 -0800

Biblio, my project was on cosmic ray interference with RAM memory chips. At the time in 1981 this was a mystery of some potential consequence, and my determination (which was a negative result, that really impressed the regional and ISEF judges) was that it wasn't cosmic rays. A few months after I won my prize the real researchers announced the result of their multi-year experiment that identified the real cause, and while I didn't identify the real cause I was right that it wasn't cosmic rays. The other guy from Louisiana Region IX who went that year had invented a cortical bone screw. His father was a doctor, and it had been noted that bone screws tended to snap off at the head, resulting in a pretty nasty medical situation. The kid thought the "neck" between the cap and the rest of the screw was too weak, and to prove it he built a testing mechanism that stomped an artifiical limb hundreds of thousands of times. It was a very impressive project and resulted in a patent. That same year one of the middle schoolers won the top regional prize for "Which pizza pi to buy." He used the area formula to calculate the cost per square inch of the pizza and tested samples to arrive at a conclusion. I'd say that was an experiment, and a very good example of how a young kid with limited math and access to tech can demonstrate how one is done. The conclusion isn't foregone because you're measuring commercial products and comparing them.

By: If only I had a penguin...

If only I had a penguin... — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 20:31:03 -0800

I am very involved in STEM and STEAM programming in the public library and I am on a one woman crusade to ban the word "experiment" from this kind of activity. We all know its going to turn into Oobleck. Unless you have some new hypothesis about polymers don't call it an experiment! Biblio, stop crusading to ban the word experiment and start crusading to have them do things that can accurately be described as experiments. Surely kids have questions they don't know the answer to. And just to clarify the source of my bitterness. I wasn't doing good science. My questions were lame, my hypotheses were never supported, but I just felt like at least I was doing it. In a class full of people who had been doing actual experiments, it would be unlikely that I would have deserved to "win."

By: pjern

pjern — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 20:42:51 -0800

I worked weekends in a Hobby Shop in Florida for a while with my dad- more an avocation than a vocation (It fed my appetite for model railroad equipment at wholesale prices) and science fair season was always high comedy: Mom with little girl in tow: "Where do you keep your volcano kits?" (There was no such thing) My Dad: "In the basement next to the lava floor." (Basements being unknown in Florida, for the most part.) Man with 2 unruly sons: "Where do you keep the canned helium?" (Again, no such thing in our store) My Dad: "On the ceiling." (You might begin to see where I get my sense of humor) Then, of course, there was the mom who would come in with a highly detailed list of parts for little Johnny's project specifying balsa wood in impossible thicknesses and lengths, and weights that were "not made of lead" (what did she want, then? Unobtanium, apparently), all to build a clock that had no human chance of working, even to the most casual observer. Of course, there were always a few parents who wanted us to professionally build some horrifically complicated project that would take hundreds of hours. I had one guy offer me as much as $50 for the privilege, once. Of course, there were always a few parents who threw up their hands and surrendered to us, saying "Please give little Dorothy a science experiment she can do", and we'd point out that you could get such things from a number of mail-order houses, and we were a Hobby Shop, not Edmund Scientific. I at least felt a little sympathy towards these peripatetics in search of something, anything, to help their kids out.

By: pjern

pjern — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 20:47:35 -0800

Oh! and I forgot this guy! This guy: "I need some Plutonium for my boy's science fair." My Dad: "I'm sorry sir, the government ordered the last bit we had, and had us ship it to Los Alamos." This guy: "Damn gummint!" I swear to $DEITY that these are all true stories.

By: Chaussette and the Pussy Cats

Chaussette and the Pussy Cats — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 21:15:37 -0800

When I was in fifth grade, my mom and I came up with a fairly uninventive science fair experiment. My mother explained to me that I would do really well if I wrote all the items on lined paper in coloured marker and mounted the paper on matching construction paper. She told me to then group by subject, so that the hypothesis was one colour, the directions were another, the conclusion was another. She told me to make any pictures coordinate with the colour for that section. We also went over how to build an awesome display board and how I should speak and address the judges and what points to get across when I talked. I placed regionally, all because I did those things. I work in STEM marketing.

By: 101cats

101cats — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 22:08:06 -0800

Sciencebuddies.org is THE best site for science fair material. It gives overview, helps with hypothesis, has steps in order and how to present. Even has suggestions for "making it you own." And, it still allows the kids to do real science and write it up afterwards.

By: hydropsyche

hydropsyche — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 03:46:30 -0800

I'm a regional science fair judge now. Although I have done elementary school, mostly I judge middle and high school. My favorite projects, the ones I try to reward, are those that are done from scratch because the kid has a question they want to answer, and they figure out how to answer it. Maybe they had help with the methods or the stats--I don't really care as long as the kid obviously took the initiative, conceived of the project themself, and can explain it well. At this point, I recognize every single one of the prepackaged things and ideas gotten off of websites like those in the FPP. I don't exactly dismiss them out of hand, but the execution and explanation must be exemplary to make up for the fact that the kid did not actually do their own project. It is shocking how many high school kids think that building a volcano or a solar powered car kit is an experiment and claim to have a hypothesis. The rubric they give us to judge is explicitly for actual experiments, and they get marked off significantly for not having a falsifiable hypothesis, not having replication, not using statistics, etc. But it's frustrating that they even think for a moment that they have a good project. The flip side of that, of course, are the ones whose parents or family friends actually are scientists, and the kid's project is impressive not because of the well-executed methodology but because they had access to lab equipment that the other kids do not. I push those kids very very hard in questioning, to make sure they actually understand what they did. Sometimes they do, sometimes it's just mommy who did. I don't care at all about what the poster looks like, as long as I can actually read it, and it's organized into the sections of the scientific method.

By: Pater Aletheias

Pater Aletheias — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 05:47:38 -0800

Yes, yes, yes, let me add to the chorus of complaints about science fair judging. My daughter has been in two science fairs (2nd and 3rd grade). For 2nd grade, she wanted to find out if there were more bugs in the short, mowed grass of our front yard or the neglected weeds out back. We looked up a simple bug catcher design (basically, bury a plastic cup up the rim--some bugs fall in and can't get out) and every night for three nights she counted and categorized the bugs that were caught. Nice, clear-cut, experiment, followed the scientific method, and she actually learned something. She won the school science fair, was sent to the district level, where the winners were all some kind of a demonstration of how to make something that had nothing to do with the scientific method at all. I was pretty annoyed, not so much that she didn't place at district, but at how stupid the judging was. I would have disqualified every winning project for not following the instructions and not even trying to do science. 3rd grade was a straight up repeat of the process. This time she was told to do something related to geology, so she gathered sampled of different kinds of soils and measured how fast 1/2 cup of each kind completely absorbed 5ml of water. Again, clear question, straightforward design, and an answer at the end that we couldn't have known at the start. Learning! Her hypothesis (that soil from our yard absorbs water fastest) was wrong (beach sand wins!) and we talked about how great that that her hypothesis was wrong, because it meant that she learned something new. Scientists love disproving hypotheses, I told her, that's when they know they are learning something new! She won her school science fair, and once again got nowhere in district because a bunch of slick looking, right-from-a-book, complete non-experiments won again. This year it really bothered her, because she had really done a lot of work and she knew it was a solid project, so we had to have a little talk about how the judges don't know what they are doing and sometimes you have to continue doing good work even if it goes unrecognized. It's a good life lesson to learn, but hard to deal with when you are eight and you are already encountering flashy nonsense beating out people who actually worked hard and learned something. I really wish she could enter two projects--one that follows the rules and another that would win district. That would be a great little experiment on its own.

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 07:50:20 -0800

Bitter? Who's bitter? It's not that I'm bitter, it's that I was persecuted and treated unjustly for science. Your pseudonym is fooling no-one, GLaDOS.

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 09:04:35 -0800

I really wish she could enter two projects--one that follows the rules and another that would win district. That would be a great little experiment on its own. Here's my spin on that idea: have your daughter write up an initial report on the projects this year, noting their topic (and the presence or lack of hypothesis to prove or disprove), presentation, and progress into upper ranks. Then next year she could test her hypothesis about what creates a winning project. Of course, it might be too much like poking a bear with a stick for the review board, especially if you've aired your grievances locally.

By: If only I had a penguin...

If only I had a penguin... — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 10:14:12 -0800

Here's my spin on that idea: have your daughter write up an initial report on the projects this year, noting their topic (and the presence or lack of hypothesis to prove or disprove), presentation, and progress into upper ranks. Then next year she could test her hypothesis about what creates a winning project. Of course, it might be too much like poking a bear with a stick for the review board, especially if you've aired your grievances locally. This is more social science than natural science, but if that's allowed, I would still be wary. Are you really going to have one kid rate the presentation of their classmates and then present their findings to, among others, their classmates? "Johnny's project was a piece of crap, but thanks to Mom's scrapbooking hobby, including one of those wierd printers that cuts paper into whatever shape, that was clearly the best board and that's why he won. Mary analzyed genetic samples from four kinds of jelly fish and found that jelly fish with a specific genetic mutation can kill cancer. It's pretty obvious her mom did her project...." No way I would let a student go anywhere near this if I were a teacher. Maybe if they could get access to projects at another school (preferably in another district) and then present the data without identifying information (No names, no topics, etc.).