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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Project Ideas: Don't Get Burned: Uv Index Throughout the Day

For Students 3rd - 8th
Sun tanning has a bad rap right now. Use a personal ultraviolet monitor to measure the UV index to prevent getting a sunburn. With this science fair project you will create a chart showing the UV ray measurement at different times of the...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Think Fast: Do Video Game Players Have Faster Reaction Time

For Students 9th - 10th
Are you an avid video game player? Do you think this helps you have fast reaction times? This Science Buddies science project lays out an experiment to help you test your hypothesis. The Science Buddies project ideas are set up...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: How Food Supplements Affect Weight Gain of Juvenile Mice

For Students 9th - 10th
As your mom and dad always tell you, a healthy diet is important to good health. This project is designed to see what happens to mice when they are allowed to load up on sugary snacks. Do you think that they will gain excess weight? Do...
Lesson Plan
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Are There Dangerous Levels of Lead in Local Soil?

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
The element lead is a neurotoxin that is particularly dangerous to young children. Among other uses, lead compounds were common paint additives until being phased out for safer titanium-based additives beginning in the 1960's. Lead...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Mapping Troposhperic Ozone Levels Over Time

For Students 9th - 10th
Ozone in the stratosphere protects the earth by absorbing harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. However, when ozone occurs in the troposphere, it is harmful to health. In this project you can use data from EPA monitoring stations...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: The Perfect Marriage of Computer Science & Medicine

For Students 9th - 10th
Find out the real explanation for why your parents are so weird. Here is a project that lets you explore the internet to find out why your "DNA blueprint" is so important to health and disease. In this project you will use methods that...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Using Daphnia to Monitor Water Toxicity

For Students 9th - 10th
In a bioassay, a living organism serves as a detector for toxins-the same way canaries were used in coal mines to detect invisible toxic gases. In this project, water fleas (Daphnia magna), a freshwater crustacean, are used in a bioassay...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: I Love Ice Cream, but It Doesn't Love Me: Lactose Intolerance

For Students 6th - 8th
Pizza, milk shakes, and ice cream sundaes all contain dairy products, therefore they cannot be eaten by the majority of people around the world. Dairy products contain the sugar molecule lactose, and the majority of people on the planet...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Heart Health: How Does Heart Rate Change With Exercise?

For Students 6th - 8th
Your heart starts beating before you are born and keeps right on going through your whole life. Over an average lifetime, the human heart beats more than 2.5 billion times. Keeping your heart healthy means eating right, not smoking, and...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: A Day in the Life of Your Heart

For Students 3rd - 5th
Heart rates can be determined by the amount of physical activity your body is engaging in. The more physically active you are, the faster your heart beats. You can measure the rate your heart is beating by taking your pulse. This science...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: The Nose Knows Smell but How About Taste?

For Students 3rd - 8th
As if sniffles and clogged sinuses are bad enough, everything seems to taste bland and flavorless when we are sick. Gather up a few volunteers, hit the kitchen, and try this experiment to find out if there is really truth to the idea...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Deep Knee Bends: Measuring Knee Stress With a Mechanical Model

For Students 9th - 10th
Prosthetic limbs and artificial joints can help people with disease or injury lead a normal life. Sports medicine or physical therapy is also an area that relates to this experiment. Either way, this project serves as a good match if any...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Measuring Your Threshold of Hearing

For Students 9th - 10th
How your ears and your brain turn the sound waves out there in the world into the experience of music in your head, remains a mystery to many, but yet we all experience and even enjoy sounds and music. If you're interested in doing a...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Twirls, Whirls, Spins, & Turns: Reflexes & Dizziness

For Students 9th - 10th
Tilt-A-Whirls, Merry-Go-Rounds, Spinning Tea Cups. Just the thought of these rides is enough to make someone dizzy, or queasy. Learn about spins, turns, and the mixed signals that fire in our brains when the sensation of dizziness takes...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Puppy Proportions: Growth Spurts & Weight Gain in a Dog

For Students 3rd - 8th
Puppies prove to be a fun and useful aid in this adorable experiment! By having access to, and measuring a puppy's body dimensions over a period of weeks or months, you can discover if segments of canine anatomy develop at different...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Effects of Exercise: Changes in Carbon Dioxide Output

For Students 9th - 10th
Everybody knows that your body needs oxygen to keep going, and that you breathe out carbon dioxide as waste. What happens when you exercise? You've probably noticed that you breathe faster, and your heart beats faster. What triggers your...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: It's Crowded in Here! A Study of Plant Population Density

For Students 3rd - 5th
Like humans, plants can be negatively affected by overcrowding. Unlike humans, plants cannot get up and move to a new environment or explore how to utilize new resources. This experiment will explore the effects of crowding (population...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Do You Have the Willpower to Taste Something Sour?

For Students 3rd - 8th
Do try this mouth-puckering science fair project to find out if people of all ages love sour tastes, or if there a difference between the sour preferences of kids and adults. You might be able to sell creations of your own based on your...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Old Salty: Does Age Affect the Ability to Detect Salt?

For Students 6th - 8th
Sauerkraut, pickled fish, pickled vegetables, kimchi, corned beef, processed cheeses, smoked lunch meats. Do you like these high-salt foods? What about your grandparents, do they? Do your grandparents seem to like most foods to be a bit...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: How Does Soil Affect the P H of Water?

For Students 6th - 8th
Did you know that soils can be alkaline, neutral, or acidic? Most plants grow best in soil near neutral pH, but some plants prefer slightly acidic and others slightly alkaline soil. What is the pH of the soil in your garden? What happens...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Heavy Metals and Aquatic Environments

For Students 3rd - 8th
You might know that lead can be toxic, and that you can get lead poisoning from eating or inhaling old paint dust. Lead is called a heavy metal, and there are other sources of heavy metals that can be toxic, too. Silver, copper, mercury,...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: You Are What You Eat!

For Students 6th - 8th
Thinking about improving your sports performance? Want to help friends and family make the most of their physical fitness activities? One factor to consider is food. Whether you realize it or not, what you eat does change your body. It...
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Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Froggy Forecasting: How Frog Health Predicts Pond Health

For Students 6th - 8th
Have you ever heard the expression "a canary in a coal mine"? In the 1900s and earlier, coal miners brought canaries with them into the mines to act as early warning signals. The canaries were very sensitive to low levels of dangerous...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Got Iron? Measure the Concentration of Iron in Water

For Students 3rd - 8th
Iron is an important mineral essential for good health. Iron deficiency can be a problem. In this science fair project, use a simple iron test kit to measure the concentration of iron in water. This experiement is explained clearly and...