Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Pick This Project!

For Students 6th - 8th
This lab will help you understand the physics of vibrating strings, and find out why the tone of an electric guitar changes when you switch between the different pickups. If playing guitars is a hobby of yours, this experiment makes an...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: How to Make a Guitar Sing

For Students 9th - 10th
This is a great project for musicians interested in the physics of stringed instruments. If you have ever played an acoustic guitar, you may have noticed that picking a single string can make one or more of the other (unpicked) strings...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Forensics: How Does It Matter? Measure the Spatter!

For Students 9th - 10th
Every criminal leaves behind evidence at the crime scene. The trick to catching the criminal is collecting all of the evidence and making sense of it. This is what the forensic expert does. In this science project you will be correlating...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: A Battery That Makes Cents

For Students 3rd - 5th
Batteries are expensive to purchase in a store, but you can make one your self for exactly 24 cents. In this experiment, you will make your own voltaic pile using pennies and nickels and determine how many coins in a pile will make the...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Getting Critical Over Colloids

For Students 3rd - 5th
What is a colloid? If you have made Oobleck out of corn starch and water, then you know that a colloid is a mixture that acts like a solid and a liquid at the same time. This activity helps you determine the critical factors that...
Website
Bill Nye

Bill Nye: Bill Nye Online Science Lab

For Students 9th - 10th
Bill Nye's Online Science Lab offers home demos for planetary, physical, and life science, a "Question of the Week," e-cards, episode guides, and lots of fun facts. A great resource for students looking for science-fair project or lab...
Activity
Other

Cdli: Intermediate Projects Physics

For Students 9th - 10th
This site from the Center for Distance Learning and Innovation provides a really extensive listing of possible science fair projects. Maybe a hundred. Physics, Engineering, Meteorology, Chemistry, Botany. Interesting goodies.
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Hey Gear Heads! The Physics of Bicycle Gear Ratios

For Students 9th - 10th
Here's an abstract of a project from Science Buddies that asks you to experiment with bicycle gears and the circumference of the wheel to determine revolutions per minute.
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: The Physics of Cheating in Baseball

For Students 9th - 10th
This week-long project asks you to examine the density of certain materials, such as "corked" baseball bats and regular baseball bats, and whether they can cause a ball to travel different distances.
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Tee Time: How Fast Is Your Golf Swing?

For Students 3rd - 8th
Determine how golf club head velocity affects shot distance. Make your next trip to the driving range educational by conducting this experiment.
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Using a Laser to Measure the Speed of Light in Jello

For Students 9th - 10th
Think it takes expensive, sophisticated equipment to measure the speed of light? Think again. Outfit yourself with a simple handheld laser pointer, a protractor, and Jell-O, and you're ready to get started.
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Build a Motorboat Powered by Surface Tension

For Students 3rd - 8th
If you look carefully, you could find dozens of similar interesting phenomena that are all linked to the surface tension of water. Here is a project that will help you understand and measure the properties of water surface tension.
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Using Laser Pointer to Measure Data Track Spacing on C Ds, Dv Ds

For Students 9th - 10th
You've probably noticed the colorful patterns "reflecting" from the shiny surface of a CD disk. What you are seeing is actually diffraction of white light, and the rainbows of color are diffraction patterns. In this project you'll learn...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Measuring the Surface Tension of Water

For Students 9th - 10th
Did you know that when you dip your finger in water and pull it out, the water is actually pulling back on you? Here's a way you can measure how much.
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Slip Sliding Away: Experimenting With Friction

For Students 3rd - 5th
As you headed up the mountain to enjoy your last ski trip, you may have noticed a sign reading: Hazard. Icy Roads Ahead, Put On Your Chains. Putting chains on car tires increases the resistance between the tires and the road allowing the...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Balancing the Load: The See Saw as a Simple Machine

For Students 3rd - 5th
Have you ever tried to pull out a nail out of wood with your bare hands? Or have you tried to shove a staple through a stack of papers without a stapler? A hammer's claw, a stapler, a pair of pliers and a shovel are each examples of...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: What Goes Up, Must Come Down

For Students 3rd - 5th
Standing on a balcony near the top of the 179-foot tall Tower of Pisa, a young scientist dropped two iron balls into the crowd below. The scientist, young Galileo, was not trying to knock his fellow professors on the head, but was trying...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Centripetal Force

For Students 3rd - 5th
What keeps you in your seat of a giant loop-de-loop roller coaster? Surprisingly, it is not the seatbelt but the seat. It works because of something called centripetal force and it does much more than make a great roller coaster. In this...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Walking Coins on a (Vertical!) 'High Wire'

For Students 9th - 10th
Here is a project that is almost like a magic trick: with a strong magnet and a simple apparatus you can build yourself, you can make a coin "walk" up and down a wire coat hanger. This project is an interesting way to learn about the...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: How the Strength of a Magnet Varies With Temperature

For Students 6th - 8th
Physicists sometimes study matter under extreme conditions. For example, think of the emptiness of interstellar space vs. the unimaginable crush of pressure at the center of a neutron star, or an object dipped in liquid nitrogen vs. the...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Frequency Dependent Sound Absorption

For Students 9th - 10th
Want to start a garage band, but Mom or Dad won't let you because it will make too much noise? This is a good project for someone who is interested in acoustics and likes to build things. The objective of this project is to determine if...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: How Does Color Affect Heating by Absorption of Light?

For Students 9th - 10th
Light is an example of an electromagnetic wave. Electromagnetic waves can travel through the vacuum of interstellar space. They do not depend on an external medium-unlike a mechanical wave such as a sound wave which must travel through...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Measuring Light Intensity Using the Inverse Square Law

For Students 9th - 10th
You've probably heard that compact fluorescent light bulbs are more efficient than incandescent bulbs. More of the electricity they use goes into producing light, and less into producing heat than with incandescent bulbs. How much more...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Supercooling Water and Snap Freezing

For Students 6th - 8th
Can water remain liquid below its normal freezing point? If it does, that water is supercool(-ed). This project shows you a method for supercooling water. You can test water from different sources to see whether or not it can be...