Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Leaves and Light
Leaves use sunlight to make food for the plant. Sunlight contains all of the colors of the rainbow, but are all of those colors used by the leaf? Can you find out if some colors of light are more important than others?
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Science Buddies: Do Potatoes Regulate the Formation of New Roots?
Propagate potatoes by giving it the right environment for the eyes to sprout.
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Science Buddies: Shoots: How Do Mint Plants Branch to Form New Stems?
Do you like to climb trees? The branches of trees are what make them so fun to climb. Each branch starts out as a tiny shoot that grows out from a stem. How is the growth of shoots along a stem regulated?
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Science Buddies: Color Saturation
Lively, vivid colors can add pizzazz and turn a dull photo into a work of art. Learn how changing the saturation levels of the colors in your photo can really make it pop.
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Science Buddies: Measuring the Moon
Sometimes a full moon can be so bright, you can walk around in the dark without a flashlight. How much brighter is a full moon than the other phases of the moon? How is the brightness of the moon measured?
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Science Buddies: How Food Supplements Affect Weight Gain of Juvenile Mice
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...
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Science Buddies: How Many Seeds Do Different Types of Fruit Produce?
Do you like your strawberry jelly with or without the seeds? Are you glad to have a seed-free watermelon, or do you enjoy spitting the seeds into the garden? You might not like to find seeds in your fruit, but fruit is nature's way of...
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Science Buddies: A Matter of Time
Do you wake up at the crack of dawn, or do you need an alarm clock to wake you up each morning? It may surprise you that the two are not always in synch. Nowadays, we use Standard Time to set our watches instead of Solar Time. Which...
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Science Buddies: The Milky Way and Beyond: Globular Clusters
Globular clusters, compact groups of about a million stars that move around together in galaxies, are among the oldest objects found in the universe. Since they are found most galaxies and since they've been around for so long, globular...
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Science Buddies: Sunspot Cycles
Sunspot activity has been monitored continuously since about 1700. The historical data shows that sunspot activity rises and falls in a roughly 11-year cycle. This project shows you how you can use both graphical and statistical analysis...
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Science Buddies: Pick a Card, Any Card
No matter what your favorite card game is, we all wish we could use psychic powers to draw the card we want on our turn. You may not have psychic powers, but you might have the power of probability on your side. Do this experiment and...
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Science Buddies: Finding Phyla
Animals come in all shapes and sizes, each a small part of the amazing diversity of life. These differences can also help us to classify animals into different groups. Which group do you belong to? Do this experiment to investigate the...
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Science Buddies: An Experiment in Visual Perception
Graphical methods of data presentation are a key feature of scientific communication. This project will get you thinking about how to find the best way to communicate scientific information.
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Science Buddies: Interpreting Area Data From Maps vs. Graphs
Graphical methods of data presentation are a key feature of scientific communication. This project asks the question, "What's the best way to compare the land area of states: a map or a bar graph?" You'll be measuring performance on two...
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Science Buddies: Dry Spells, Wet Spells: How Common Are They?
Here's a project that looks at what the weather was like for over a hundred years. The goal of the project is to compare long-term precipitation patterns in different regions of the country. You will work with historical climate data,...
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Science Buddies: Play Doh Math
One piece of Play-Doh can make many different shapes. Even though you can change the shape by squishing or stretching the Play-Doh, it is still the same size unless you add or take away some of the dough. Try this experiment to test how...
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Science Buddies: Juice Box Geometry
Juice boxes are so convenient, just poke the straw in and sip away. It might surprise you how much thought goes into the design and manufacturing of a juice box. Each manufacturer has carefully calculated how big each side should be to...
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Science Buddies: M&m Geometry
Geometry is the study of how to use math to describe and investigate different points, lines and shapes. The way that a shape is described in geometry is with a formula, which is simply a mathematical way to calculate different...
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Science Buddies: How Does a Hovercraft Work?
Riding on a hovercraft is like gliding on a cushion of air. Make your own mini hovercraft in this experiment to test how hovercrafts work.
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Science Buddies: Rubbing Up Against Static Electricity
A tried and true balloon activity is to rub a balloon on your head to make your hair stand up. Learn how the rubbing builds up static electricity using this experiment to see if the number of rubs makes a difference.
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Science Buddies: Understand Shock Levels and Packaging Principles
When you open up your presents on your birthday, you probably don't spend a lot of time admiring the wrapping-you'd much rather see what's inside. It can be the same way with the packaging that products come in, but packaging is...
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Science Buddies: Photography With Near Infrared Illumination
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have an extra sense? What if you could hear above the normal range (ultrasound) like dogs or bats? This project shows you how you can use a camera, tripod and a special filter to take...
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Science Buddies: Digital Pinhole Camera
If you sit under a leafy tree on a sunny day, you may notice spots of sunlight on the ground from light passing through spaces between the leaves. Try putting a piece of cardboard on the ground and examining the spots of light on the...
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Science Buddies: How Do Different Materials React to Static Electricity?
Polyester clothing was generally accepted as a popular trend in fashion at one point in history. Now everybody wears cotton, which doesn't get static cling nearly as much. Why are some materials more susceptible to static cling than...