Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Bacterial Resistant Materials and the Best Disinfectant
If you'd rate yourself high on the bacteriophobia scale, just keep on scrolling down to the next project. Bacteria are all around us, and normally our body's defenses keep us blissfully unaware of them. If you don't mind finding out...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Which Metal Is the Most Resistant to Corrosion?
Here's a practical engineering challenge: you need to build an enclosure for your dogs, using material that they can't chew through. It's going to be a lot of work to build, so you want to do it right. What material should you choose for...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Primary Productivity and Plankton
The oceans contain both the earth's largest and smallest organisms. Interestingly they share a delicate relationship linked together by what they eat. The largest of the ocean's inhabitants, the Blue Whale, eats very small plankton,...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: The Viscosity of Motor Oil
The insides of a car engine get very hot when the engine is running. Motor oil lubricates the moving parts, to keep the engine operating smoothly. Learn what happens to motor oil as the engine temperature goes up.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Does Chemical Lightening Affect the Structure of Human Hair?
Hair strands can be used as the basis for a hygrometer, a device which measures the humidity level in the air. The goal of this project is to determine whether chemical lightening treatments affect the natural elasticity of human hair.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies:brain Body Connection: Can Exercise Make Our Brains Work Better?
We all know physical exercise is important to keeping our bodies fit. But how important is physical exercise to your brain? In other words, is there any connection between an active body and increased brain power? This is an easy project...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Fallen Arches: The Surprising Strength of Eggshells
Arches have been used for structural engineering since ancient times. This experiment tests the strength of a naturally occurring arch shape: the shell of an egg. How much weight do you think an eggshell can support?
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Are More Expensive Golf Balls Worth It?
There is a bewildering selection of different golf balls to choose from for playing the game. Some less expensive, some more expensive, all with different claims for the advantages they will bring to your game. This project can help you...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Asymmetric Dimple Patterns and Golf Ball Flight
Have you ever wondered why golf balls have a pattern of dimples on their surface? The dimples are important for determining how air flows around the ball when it is in flight. The dimple pattern, combined with the spin imparted to the...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Tee Time: How Does Tee Height Affect Driving Distance?
If you're an avid golfer, this might be a fun project for you. When you're setting up to tee off out on the course, how much attention do you pay to putting the tee in the ground? The height of the tee can affect both where in the swing...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Balancing Act: Finding Your Center of Gravity
Like to have the balance of a tightrope walker? Try the more close - to - the - ground balancing test in this easy experiment to learn a few trade secrets of the high wire experts. In this project, you'll find your center of gravity and...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: How Does Packaging Affect the Ripening of Fruit?
Why do different types of fruits come packaged in different ways? In this project, you will experiment with different ways of packaging fruit to see if it has an effect on the freshness of the fruit. Will a different kind of packaging...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Coke & Mentos Nucleation Goes Nuclear!
You may have seen it on You Tube and David Letterman - the exploding Coke and Mentos experiment? But what is it that makes the reaction happen? In this experiment you will see if tiny dimples called nucleation sites have anything to do...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Sand Structure: Measuring Density and Porosity of Sand
For many kids, a day at the beach would not be complete without building a sandcastle. Have you ever wondered how it is that you can pack sand into a mold for a sandcastle? Do some kinds of sand pack better than others? This project will...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: The Leaning Tower of Pasta
Here's a project for a budding architect or structural engineer. Can you make a strong, lightweight tower using only uncooked spaghetti and white glue? In this project, you'll learn about materials testing and apply what you learn to...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Nothing but Net: The Science of Shooting Hoops
Swish. What a great sound when you hit the perfect shot and get nothing but net. Here's a project to get you thinking about how you can make that perfect shot more often.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: The Physics of Cheating in Baseball
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.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Frequency of Outcomes in a Small Number of Trials
People often draw conclusions from a small number of observations, but how easy is it to draw the wrong conclusion? Here is a simple project that shows the importance of making enough observations before making a prediction.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Extracting Onion Dna
In this project, you'll learn how to isolate DNA from onion cells, separating it from other cellular components in a manner that still preserves its structure and sequence. In the end, you'll have enough DNA to see with the unaided eye,...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Yeast Reproduction in Sugar Substitutes
There's nothing quite like the smell of fresh-baked bread to make your mouth water. As any baker can tell you, you can't bake bread without yeast. This project makes clever use of bread dough to measure yeast reproduction three different...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Earthworm Castings: Soil for Young Garden Plants
Everybody knows that worms are good for the soil, but not everybody knows why. Here's a project that investigates just one of the ways earthworms improve the earth.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Cryopreservation: Freezing Plant Tissues
Cryopreservation-storing seeds in ultra-cold liquid nitrogen-is one method for maintaining plant genetic stocks in seed banks. The purpose of this project is to observe the characteristics and outcomes of cryogenically frozen seedlings...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Planting Size vs. Depth
Plants have evolved many clever mechanisms to ensure that their seeds will wait for appropriate conditions before sprouting. Some may only germinate after a fire, others only after going through a cold spell. This project explores one...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Testing How Fashion Impacts the Behavior of Others Around Us
There's an old saying that "the clothes make the man" (or woman, we're quick to add nowadays). How true do you think this is? Here's a project with one approach for finding out.