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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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Activity
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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Activity
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...
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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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Activity
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...
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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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Activity
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...
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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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Activity
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...
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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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Activity
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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Activity
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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Activity
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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Activity
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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Activity
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...
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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...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Ewww, Dog Breath! Does Active Play Take a Dog's Breath Away?

For Students 3rd - 5th
A project that requires you to play with a dog cannot be all that bad, right? This scientific experiment entails the respiratory functions of dogs. Learn the chemical and bodily processes going on within your canine companions...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Do You Love the Taste of Food? Find Out if You're a Supertaster

For Students 3rd - 5th
To supertasters, the flavors of foods are much stronger than to average tasters. This can explain why some people are more picky about their food than others, because they experiences tastes in a much stronger form. Find out if you are a...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Can Your Body Temperature Tell the Time of Day?

For Students 9th - 10th
If you have ever had to adjust to a new time zone, you have noticed that it takes a while before you start to feel normal again. By shifting your sleep and activity schedule, you have altered the pattern of your body's circadian rhythms....
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Lesson Plan
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Minding Your Mummies: The Science of Mummification

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
Mummies have always played a part in nightmares for Western cultures, but in ancient Egypt, mummification was a serious religious ritual. They believed that preserving human remains was necessary so that the previous owner could enjoy...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Pinocchio's Arm: A Lie Detector Test

For Students 6th - 8th
You might be surprised to learn that you have been practicing skills closely tied to lying if you have ever seen someone in pain, or mimicked your favorites sports athlete. In this science fair project, you will discover how your brain...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: I See a Full Moon Rising, and Shrinking, or Do I?

For Students 9th - 10th
The moon appears bigger at the horizon just as it is rising over the treetops, than it does later in the evening when it is overhead. This is because our perception of its size changes based on where it is in the sky. In this human...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Fast Food: Can Peppermint Improve Reaction Times?

For Students 9th - 10th
Did you know that some teachers give their students a peppermint candy on state testing days? Is it to give the kids sweet-smelling breath? Or are the teachers hoping for something more on the important testing day? In this human biology...
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Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Now You See It, Now You Don't! Test Your Peripheral Vision

For Students 3rd - 8th
The survival of our ancient ancestors depended on their ability to use peripheral vision to find prey and to avoid predators. Almost everything we do-from riding a bike, to dribbling a basketball, to reading a book-depends on peripheral...