Sugar, gelatin and science collide in the annual #PeepYourScience contest — a challenge to craft scientific dioramas out of sticky marshmallow Peeps.

This year's contest, hosted by the nonprofit organization The Open Notebook, will run from  Feb. 15 to March 21. 

The competition's organizers playfully call the event "the world's finest science-themed Peeps diorama contest" — of course, it's the only contest of its kind. Given the array of colorful entries from the past two years, one can expect the 2021 contest to garner just as many creative displays of sugary confection.

Related: Science experiments for kids 

Last year's winning diorama depicted a day in the life of a sugar-coated data scientist, wherein marshmallow bunnies stood in for researchers as they cleaned, wrangled, modeled and delivered data. The "Peeple's Choice Award" went to a sweet ode to fieldwork; in the diorama, a dog appears to sniff for the poop of carnivorous animals in the Upper Paraná Forest in Argentina, while a Peep biologist follows closely behind.

Other past entries paid homage to famous scientists, such as primatologist Jane Goodall, and mathematicians, like Dorothy Vaughan of NASA. Still others depicted exciting trips to the Museum of Natural "Peepstory" and marshmallow activists discussing climate change at the United Nations. It just goes to show that, with marshmallow as a medium, one can always find new, innovative ways to put science on display. 

To submit your own delectable diorama, visit The Open Notebook website, where you can find all of the requirements and instructions for entering. There are separate entry forms for individual submissions and K-12 classrooms.

Live Science senior writer Mindy Weisberger plans to submit her own Peep diorama to this year's contest; we won't give away her idea, but we will reveal that it's space-themed. If you plan to enter, we'd love to see your creations! Post your diorama on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter and tag @LiveScience, and we may feature you on our social media pages. 

Originally published on Live Science. 

Kiddos explore science through experiments, learning essential principles with hands-on experience. Adding a science experiment book to their library of choices will offer mind-broadening foundational information. These books cover many important schools of thought, including chemistry, engineering, and physics. These engaging texts fit science into everyday life using household materials, making experiments easy to perform and understand. To choose the science experiment book that best compliments the child in your life, we’ve collected our favorites.

It's a science

Performing experiments give kids the chance to understand scientific concepts through real-world application. Fun experiments can engage and educate, especially at home. Science experiment books offer many options using on-hand materials. Our first choice is The Everything Kids' Science Experiments Book by Tim Robinson because, in 144 pages, it features a variety of fun experiments from biology to chemistry. Supported by available materials, kids will be excited to transform their homes into the best laboratories. 

For those looking for a quick and easy science experiment collection, the Smithsonian 10-Minute Science Experiments: 50 Quick, Easy & Awesome Projects for Kids by Steve Spangler will have kids conducting experiments in minutes. Assembling experiments with materials around the house, they'll grasp the fundamentals in a fast and fun way. 

When the weather outside is frightful, soaking in a hot bath can sound especially appealing. And adding a bath bomb to the water can elevate the experience. But what exactly is in these scented spheres, and what makes them so fizzy?

Bath bombs are usually made from three key ingredients: baking soda, citric acid and cornstarch, said Frankie Wood-Black, an instructor in chemistry at Northern Oklahoma College and an experienced bath-bomb maker. Often, bath bombs also include dyes and perfumes, and sometimes they have epsom salt.

The fizziness of bath bombs comes from the chemical reactions that happen when the baking soda and citric acid come into contact with water, Wood-Black told Live Science. Baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, has the chemical formula NaHCO3. In water, baking soda quickly dissolves, and the positively charged sodium (Na+) breaks apart from negatively charged bicarbonate (HCO3-). [Goopy Science: How to Make Slime with Glue]

Meanwhile, the citric acid also dissolves, with a single hydrogen ion (H+) separating from the rest of the molecule, Wood-Black said. Then, that positively charged hydrogen from the citric acid and the negatively charged bicarbonate from the baking soda mingle, very quickly undergoing a series of reactions. One of the end products is carbon dioxide (CO2). Because carbon dioxide is a gas, it forms small bubbles in the bath water, creating a delightful fizz.

If there are perfumes or scented oils in the bath bomb, they are released into the air with the carbon dioxide bubbles, Wood-Black said. The sodium from the baking soda and the rest of the citric acid molecule (minus the hydrogen that it lost when it dissolved) simply remain in the water.

The cornstarch in a bath bomb has just one job: It slows down the reaction.

By binding to the baking soda as well as the citric acid, the cornstarch slows down the rate at which both of them dissolve. The effect is that the fizziness may last 3 or 4 minutes, instead of only seconds, Wood-Black said.

Making bath bombs is not difficult, she said. She mixes 1 cup of baking soda, one-half cup of citric acid and one-half cup of cornstarch together in a bowl. All three items can be found at grocery stores. Citric acid is found in soda and candy and can also be used to make cheese, Wood-Black noted. After mixing the three ingredients, she adds about 1 teaspoon of water, which is enough to just barely moisten the ingredient mixture so that the powder sticks together. She then scoops the mixture into a mold (such as a Santa or a star candy mold) to form a shape and lets the shapes dry overnight.

But you can also just mix together the three key ingredients and skip the water. Leave the mixture in a jar, and then scoop it into your bath, she said.

Food coloring can be used to dye bath bombs, she said. But she doesn't dye the ones she makes. "I opt not [to do that]," she said. "I'm a chemist by profession, but with food coloring, I just get it all over the place."

• How to Make Oobleck - A Simple Recipe for Making Slime
• How to Make Puffy Slime
• Frozen Family Fun: Try These Cold-Weather Science Experiments

Originally published on Live Science.

Record-cold temperatures sweeping across parts of the Midwest, East Coast and Southeast likely have many shuttered indoors with the heat cranked up. Lengthy stints inside can be a recipe for cabin fever.

For those looking to keep their kiddos occupied and have chill family time, there's a way to use the extreme cold for some entertainment (and sneak in a little science education, too). Here, LiveScience has rounded up a few fun experiments that can be done with just a little time outdoors (make sure to bundle up!), from making frozen soap bubbles to creating your own colorful snow. (There are also some experiments to make sure the little ones don't try.) 

Frozen bubbles

Kids love bubbles. And while summer is typically the time to crack open a bottle of bubbles, there's a way to make them work in the winter. If it's cold enough outside (Steve Spangler Science recommends temperatures below freezing, though he says the colder it is the better), you can make the bubbles freeze. The trick is to blow them up in the air so that they have time to freeze before hitting the ground or another surface. The bubbles will form crystalline patterns and some might break, looking a bit like the shell of a cracked egg. Don't have any bubble solution handy? The post also has a simple homemade recipe. [See More Science Experiments for Kids]

Maple syrup candy

Do just like Half Pint did in the "Little House on the Prairie" books and make your own maple syrup candy. Just heat butter and syrup together, according to this recipe, and after it cools, you can pour it onto fresh snow and it will harden into something like maple taffy. Yum!

Magic balloons

Okay, so maybe they're not magic, but they will seem that way to the kids, and this one is quite easy. Just inflate a balloon and and tie the end, then stick it outside and watch it deflate. Bring it back inside to warm up and watch it re-inflate. (This is a nice lesson in how the volume of a gas, in this case, air, changes with temperature, shrinking in the cold, as its density increases, and expanding in the heat, as its density decreases.)

Make your own snow

This one is for those of you experiencing really cold temperatures. Meteorologist Eric Holthaus demonstrates it nicely in a video posted to Youtube: If it's cold enough outside, you can take some boiling water throw it up in the air (make sure it will blow away from you), and it will freeze into snow. When Holthaus did his experiment in Viroqua, Wisconsin, it was minus 21 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 29 degrees Celsius) with a wind chill of minus 51 degrees F (minus 46 degrees C).

Don't run outside with a bowl of super-hot water just yet. Yes, the water will surely freeze into snow (temperatures are in the single digits and below in many spots), but before it does so some of the scalding water could burn your kid's skin.

In a YouTube video posted Jan. 6, 2014, a Chicago man threw a pot of boiling water off his balcony, with some of the hot water landing on his girlfriend and him. In that same year, news reports suggest that some 50 people burned themselves with the icy experiment. 

How does water turn into snow in the first place? Colder air holds less water vapor than warmer air, while the boiling water is giving off lots of water vapor (that's the steam you see rising from the pot). When the hot water is thrown into the cold air, the air gets more water vapor than it can hold, Mark Seeley, a climatologist at the University of Minnesota, explained previously to Live Science, so the water vapor clings to tiny particles in the air, crystallizing into snow. Seeley said the air must be quite cold to attempt this one, somewhere in the region of minus 30 degrees F (minus 34 degrees C) or lower.

On Dec. 28, 2017, atop Mount Washington in New Hampshire, where temperatures dropped to minus 31 degrees F (minus 35 degrees C), weather observer Adam Gill, of Mount Washington Observatory, carried out the snow-making trick, with the boiling water immediately freezing into crystals and rushing away in hurricane-force winds, according to a video of the experiment on Facebook.  

Do NOT try this at home

One "experiment" to make sure the kids don't attempt is triple-dog daring anyone into sticking their tongue to that frozen flagpole. Maddie Gilmartin, 12, of East Kingston, N.H., gave this one a try and, sure enough, her tongue was frozen to the pole, as the New York Daily News notes. Her parents tried to blow warm air on her tongue and douse it with warm water to get it unstuck, but to no avail. Eventually the paramedics were able to free her; and her tongue is expected to recover, though it could take up to six months for the swelling to go down.

Why does this happen? The tongue is warm, and when it touches the frigid pole, the pole saps that warmth and cools the tongue, causing the body to send more heat to the cooled area. But the high thermal conductivity of the metal pole means it sucks up that warmth faster than the body can resupply it to the tongue. The upshot: The moisture on the tongue freezes in the pores of the tongue and the metal and, voila, you're stuck.

Editor's Note: This article was first published in 2014 and updated in 2017.

Original article on LiveScience.

Scientists, it's time to lend your ears (and your knowledge) to this year's big science competition: Explaining the science of sound to 11-year-olds.

The winning answer will help not only children across the world understand sound, but also the contest's founder, actor Alan Alda. Alda is known for his work on the TV series "M*A*S*H" and "The West Wing," and now heads the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University in New York.

Since 2012, the center has organized an annual competition, asking scientists — be they graduate students, professors or retired — to explain complicated concepts in an engaging and easy-to-understand way. Hundreds of researchers have stepped forward, answering questions about color, sleep, time and flame. [Easy Answers to the Top 5 Science Questions Kids Ask]

In fact, Alda started the competition based on an experience he had at age 11. He remembers asking his teacher to explain flame, and she responded with one word: oxidation.

"I never got a good explanation," Alda told Live Science last year. "I didn't know what oxidation was. Oxidation was just another word for me."

Years later, he started the contest as a way to engage 11-year-olds in science, and to connect scientists with the next generation. Each year, children submit questions they want answered. Alda presents the winning question to scientists, and asks that they submit a 300-word explanation, a graphic response or a 5-minute video explaining the concept.

"There are so many ways in which sounds affect us, so many ways that different animals use sound, and so many kinds of sound," Alda said in a statement. "I can't wait to see how creatively scientists will explain exactly what sound is. The kids and I are all ears."

Entries will be judged by 11-year-olds around the world. Two winning scientists — one with a written entry and one with a video or graphic entry — will receive a $1,000 cash prize and a free trip to New York City, where they will meet Alda at the 2016 World Science Festival.

More than one child asked, "what is sound," and all of them are looking forward to an answer, including Aidan Green, a fifth-grader from Maungatapu Primary School in Tauranga, New Zealand.

"I like to listen to the sounds around me and wonder how they all sound different" Aidan said in a statement. "What makes them do that?"

He added that "we have a student who is currently having double cochlear implants and we have been told that he will hear things differently now, than when he just had hearing aides. How does that work?"

The contest deadline is 11:59 p.m. EST on Jan. 19, 2016. Learn more about the rules at the center's website.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

NEW YORK — Five months ago, actor Alan Alda joined 11-year-olds around the world in asking scientists a seemingly simple question: What is sleep?

More than 200 researchers responded with videos, images and essays explaining the science of sleep to thousands of 11-year-old judges. The winners, announced Sunday (May 31) here at the World Science Festival, joked about dreaming of mutant ninjas and playing the video game "Destiny" late into the night, but also explained how sleep helps the brain heal the body, as well as organize and strengthen skills learned throughout the day.

"While we sleep, our brain strengthens and rearranges … connections to help us remember things more quickly and easily when we are awake," wrote the winning essayist, Brandon Aldinger, a Pennsylvania-based materials scientist who designs armor for soldiers. "So, the next time your mom or dad yells, 'Wake up! It's time to go to school!' you can explain to them that you were actually still studying from yesterday!" [See the winning video for the sleep challenge]

Health physicist Eric Galicia, of Des Plaines, Illinois, won the video entry for his goofy and engaging video berating a sleep-deprived "Destiny" player for skipping his zzz's. More than 20,000 11-year-olds from countries such as the United States, Australia, China, Pakistan, Kuwait and the United Kingdom watched his video and others, and voted for their favorite.

Alda, known for his roles in the TV shows "M*A*S*H" and "The West Wing," thanked Aldinger, Galicia and the other contestants, congratulating them for captivating the public — especially the young judges — with complex but compelling science.

The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, at Stony Brook University in New York, began the contest in 2011, when Alda first challenged scientists to explain, "What is a flame?" to 11-year-olds. Other questions have included "What is time?" and "What is color?"; children ages 10 to 12 can submit questions for next year's challenge on the Flame Challenge website.

Sleep a wink

Each of the winning scientists received a $1,000 prize and a free trip to New York City. There, they joined Alda and four sleep experts, who explained their work on sleep and dreams to an audience of about 800 people at the World Science Festival. 

Robert Stickgold, an associate professor of psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, reeled through the myriad benefits of sleep. For one, the body releases hormones during sleep that help children grow, he said. Sleep also helps with immunity; people who are sleep-deprived after receiving the flu vaccine get only about half of its protection compared to people who got a full night's sleep, he added.

"Sleep is great," he said. "It makes you feel energetic and awake. It makes your brain work better."

Neuroscientist and dream researcher Matthew Wilson and neuroscientist Paul Shaw explained how work on rats and fruit flies helps researchers understand how important sleep is for learning, memory strengthening and healthy development.

But sleep researcher Mary Carskadon explained how modern technology, such as smartphones and video games, is pushing back bedtimes and making kids (and adults) sleepy during the day.

"Have a bedtime that gives you enough time to get plenty of sleep," Carskadon said. "Moms and dads, all these things go for you, too. It's not just the kids who need to have a break between our busy days and our restful nights."

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Did you know that Easter eggs are wonderful materials for a little fun science? Try some of these fun science activities and find out how interesting your Easter eggs can be!

No. 1: Stronger than you think …

You may want to try this over the kitchen sink or place the egg in a zippered plastic bag.

To test the strength of an eggshell, place a raw egg in the palm of your hand.  Squeeze the egg in your palm using an even pressure. Next, put your thumb and index finger on the ends of the egg and squeeze. Can you break the egg this way?

For the second test you will need four raw eggs; it’s best if they are close to the same size.

• Carefully crack the small end off of the eggs and empty the contents into a bowl. You can use the egg whites in the protein experiment (see below) — or have an omelet for lunch. Rinse the empty bottom half shells and leave them on a paper towel to dry.
• Use small scissors to trim the broken edges of the egg shells so that you have four egg shell “domes” all the same size. This needs to be done very gently so that you don’t make cracks in your test subjects.
• Arrange your shell domes on a flat surface into two rows of two shells apiece.
• Rest a large book so that it rests evenly on top of the shells. How many books can you pile on top before the shells give way?

Questions to think about:

• Did the strength of an egg surprise you?
• How is the shape of an egg related to its strength? (Hint: The oval shape of an egg is kind of like two dome shapes put together.)
• Could just one eggshell dome hold up as many books as your arrangement of four eggs?
• How can a heavy hen sit on a nest full of eggs without breaking them?

No. 2: Swimming Eggs

First, take a raw egg and place it gently in a glass jar. Fill the jar with water and set it aside for at least 15 minutes. Observe the egg through the glass. You should see bubbles forming around the egg, evidence that gases are moving through the shell through tiny openings invisible to the naked eye.

Now, when you placed the egg in the jar of water, it remained submerged. Eggs do not float in fresh water. Carefully remove the egg and add 3 tablespoons of salt to the water in the jar. Stir to dissolve the salt and gently replace the egg. Does the egg float now? Continue to add salt to the water until the egg floats at the surface.

Questions to think about:

• Why would it be important for eggs to allow air to enter and carbon dioxide to exit through the shells?
• Why did adding salt to the water allow the egg to float?

No. 3: Spinning Eggs

In the first and second experiments, we explored the strength of eggshells and the density of eggs using salt water. In these experiments we will look at inertia and proteins.

For this experiment, you will need one raw egg and one that has been hard-boiled. Mark the shells with a crayon so you will remember which has been cooked. Place both eggs, lying on their sides, on a smooth flat surface. Use your fingers to twirl the eggs until they are spinning rapidly, and then quickly use one finger to stop the motion. Be quick to lift the finger as soon as the egg stops moving!

Questions to think about:

• Which egg was able to spin faster before you stopped the motion?
• Which egg moved again after you stopped the motion?
• Which egg has more inertia? Inertia is a physical property of matter. It means that something will resist any change to its motion. If the object is not moving, you have to apply some kind of force to make it move. If the object is in motion you have to apply some kind of force to change its speed or direction. You applied a force to twirl the eggs and then applied a force to stop them from spinning. Why did one egg resist stopping?

(Hint: The liquid center of the raw egg was in motion as well.)

(Another hint: The one that resists changes to its motion has greater inertia.)

No. 4: Unfolding proteins

An egg has two edible layers inside of it, the yellow yolk and the translucent egg white or albumen. The albumen is made up of protein, water and vitamins like riboflavin and niacin. In a fertilized egg, the albumen provides the developing chick with protein and water, and then helps lubricate the inside of the shell when it is time for the baby bird to hatch.

• Crack two eggs in half over a bowl. Juggle the contents back and forth between the shell halves, allowing the egg white to run out into the bowl but catching the yolk each time. This is called “separating” the egg. You will not need the egg yolks for this experiment, only the whites. Try not to touch the egg whites with your fingers or allow any yolk to get in with them.
•  Place the egg whites in a clean, dry mixing bowl made of glass or metal. Add 1/8-teaspoon salt and 1/8-teaspoon cream of tartar. Using a wire kitchen whisk rapidly beat (stir very quickly while lifting to let in a lot of air) the egg whites. In a few minutes, air will become trapped in the mixture forming soft white foam. You may want to use an electric mixer instead of whisking by hand as the foam becomes unstable if you stop for a break before it is done.
• As the mixture begins to foam, add a half-cup of superfine granulated sugar to the mixture. Be sure to add the sugar one or two tablespoons at a time, making sure the sugar dissolves completely.
• When you can lift a spoonful of foam and turn it upside down without losing any, your foam is done. It should form stiff peaks when you lift the spoon or mixer beaters out.
• Cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and drop spoonfuls of foam onto it one inch apart — like cookies. Sprinkle with crushed peppermint candy or colored sugar and bake in a 225-degree oven for about an hour and a half. Allow them to cool and then you can eat your science!

Thinking about the science

The albumen is made up of protein and water. Proteins are very long chains of molecules that are folded up. Beating the egg whites causes the proteins to unfold and spread out, trapping the air.  In science, foam is a mass of gas bubbles trapped in a matrix of molecules. You have to be careful not to touch your foam with your fingers or allow any fat from the egg yolk into your matrix or the proteins won’t unfold properly and it will take too long to form the foam. This experiment also works best on a bright dry day. In humid conditions, the water in the air will prevent the proteins trapping air.

For more “egg”citing science, see:

Coloring Easter Eggs with Natural Dyes

Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782) was a Swiss mathematician and physicist best known for his work involving fluid dynamics. He began studying fluids because he was interested in studying the pressure and flow of blood in the human body.

His painful method of measuring blood pressure involved inserting a hollow glass tube directly into a patient’s artery and measuring the height of the blood pumped into the tube with each beat of the heart. Thankfully, this method of measuring blood pressure was replaced by the less-painful blood pressure cuff invented by Scipione Riva-Rocci in 1896.

From his experiments, Bernoulli concluded that when a fluid is moving faster, it has lower pressure. This is known as Bernoulli’s Principle, and it is used to explain many scientific ideas from the movement of weather systems to the lift created by an airplane’s wing. The following simple demonstrations will allow you to play with some fun toys and learn a bit about the natural science of fluids (liquids and gases) in motion. [Countdown: Easy Answers to the Top 5 Science Questions Kids Ask]

Experiment 1

A fluid stream that comes in contact with a gently curved surface will tend to follow that surface.

Run a gentle stream of water from a faucet. Holding a tablespoon parallel to the running water, gently introduce the curved back of the spoon into the running water.

What happens to the stream of water?

Turn the spoon around so the bowl side of the spoon is in the stream — How is the result different? On which side is the water moving faster?

Experiment 2

A faster-moving fluid has less pressure than a slower-moving fluid.

Even though you can’t see it, air is a fluid! When a column of air is moving faster than the air around it there will be less pressure where the air is moving quickly.

What you will need:

• 2 pingpong balls
• 2 pieces of thread about a foot long
• Tape
• Soda straw

What to do:

Tape the thread to the pingpong balls and suspend the balls from a towel rack or bar so that they are about a half-inch apart. Use the soda straw to blow a column of fast moving air between the balls.

In what direction do the balls move? If the swift moving air between the balls has less pressure than the rest of the air in the room, how does this explain what happened? Try moving the balls closer and farther apart. How does this change what happens and why?

Experiment 3

How to fool your friends using Bernoulli’s Principle

What you will need:

• A funnel
• A pingpong ball

What to do:

Place the pingpong ball on the table and put the funnel over it. Challenge your friends to turn the funnel right side up with the ball in the funnel — without touching the ball or scooting the funnel to the table edge.

This trick takes some practice and a lot of wind power — but you should be able to blow into the narrow end of the funnel to lower the pressure inside, raising the ball high enough to turn the funnel right side up! Remember you have to continuously blow into the funnel as you turn it!

Experiment 4

How does Bernoulli’s Principle explain how the shape of an airplane wing creates lift?

What you will need:

• A sheet of typing paper
• A piece of thread or smooth string about a yard long
• A hole punch or sharp pencil
• Tape

What to do:

Make a sharp crease in the typing paper about a third of the way up from the bottom.

Unfold the crease and tape the top edge of the paper to the bottom edge. You should now have an airfoil shape with a flat bottom surface and a gently curved top surface.

Using the curved part as the front of your airfoil, and the narrow taped edge as the back, punch a hole in the top and bottom of your airfoil. Thread the string through the holes.

Hold the string vertically with one end in each hand and the airfoil at the bottom of the string. Spin in a circle or run and watch your airfoil rise up the string.

Is the air moving more quickly over the top of the curved paper or under the bottom flat side? How do you know? Look closely at the wings on an airplane. What is the shape of the wing? How does this help explain how a heavy airplane can fly?

Experiment 5

How does a helicopter create lift?

What you will need:

• Typing paper
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Small paperclip

What to do:

(See illustration)

Cut a rectangle 4 by 8 inches (10 by 20 centimeters) from the sheet of typing paper.

Cut a straight line down the middle of the rectangle — stop almost half way down.

About one-eighth inch from the bottom of the first line, cut slits about one-and-a-half inches from the edges of the paper.

Fold up along the dotted lines so that the "X" and "Y" rectangles make the stem of the rotor. Then fold the bottom edge "Z" up a quarter-inch and add a paperclip to it for weight.

Fold rectangle "A" upward. Fold rectangle "B" downward.

Drop your helicopter from overhead and watch it spin slowly to the ground.

Where is the air moving more quickly? What force is making the air move? How does this create lift? If you live in an area where maple trees are common, study their “helicopter” seeds in the spring. What would be the advantages of this seed dispersal system?

More science experiments:

• Science Experiments for Kids
• Science Projects for the Holidays
• Weather Experiments
• High School Science Fair Projects
• Middle School Science Fair Projects

Is Christmas too slow in coming? Is it that boring interval between the holiday excitement and the start of school? Why not liven things up with a little fun and interesting science? The following activities are sure to while away some of those holiday doldrums.

What's the best way to keep your Christmas tree fresh?

Everyone knows that you must add water to the reservoir in the base of a Christmas tree. Will adding other household products to the water help keep them fresher longer? This evergreen experiment is suitable for upper elementary or middle school students. Read More »

How to make a crystal snowflake

A crystal is a solid formed by a repeating 3D arrangement of atoms, ions or molecules. Nature’s snowflakes form when tiny droplets of water freeze in clouds. In this science project, you will grow crystal shapes that you can use to decorate your Christmas tree. This experiment can be done solo by upper elementary or middle school students. Younger kids can do this one with help from an older sibling or an adult. Read More »

Candy chromatography

Sugar plums and candy canes, M&Ms and chocolates. These may be a few of your favorite things around the holidays. Have you ever wondered how candy got its color? This experiment in paper chromatography will show you which dyes were used to make the colors on your favorite candies. This one is suitable for high school students. Read More »

More science fair projects

• High School Science Fair Projects
• Middle School Science Fair Projects
• Weather Experiments / Science Fair Projects
• How to Choose a Science Fair Project Topic
• Cool Science Experiments for Hot Summer Days

Sugar plums and candy canes, M&Ms and chocolates. These may be a few of your favorite things around the holidays. Have you ever wondered how candy got its color?

This experiment in paper chromatography will show you which dyes were used to make the colors on your favorite candies.

What is chromatography?

Chromatography is a method of separating the different components of a mixture or solution. In paper chromatography, a mixture is dissolved and a drop is put on a piece of paper. The mixture separates and the components flow up the paper at different rates. The pattern that the separated substances make is a "chromatogram."

What you need

• 15 pieces of hard-shell, colored candies (such as M&Ms or Skittles): 5 each of 3 different colors you wish to test (for example, 5 brown M&Ms, 5 red M&Ms and 5 blue Skittles – or some other combination)
• Coffee filters: enough to make 30 test strips each 1 by 3 inches (2.5 by 8 centimeters)
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Pie plate or jar lid
• Transparent plastic cup or drinking glass
• Disposable pipette or clean eyedropper
• Wooden or plastic coffee stirrers (4)
• Measuring cup and measuring spoons
• Container large enough to hold 4 cups of water
• Wide-mouth glass jar
• Mini binder clips (2)
• Food coloring: red, green and blue
• Salt
• Water

What to do

Prepare test strips

1. Cut coffee filters into identical strips of about 1 by 3 inches (2.5 by 8 centimeters).
2. Use a pencil to lightly label each strip: 3 strips for each color of candy and 3 strips for each color of food coloring.
3. Draw a light pencil line across the width of each strip about half an inch (or about 1.5 cm) from the bottom. This will be the starting line for your test drop of candy dye.

Extract dye from candies

1. Put some water in a cup. Use the eyedropper to move a single drop of water to the pie plate. Carefully set a single candy in the drop of water. Let rest for at least 3 minutes while the dye dissolves out of the candy into the water.
2. Remove and discard the candy.
3. Touch the tip of a coffee stirrer to the colored drop and transfer a droplet of colored water to the middle of the starting line on the appropriate test strip. Allow the droplet to dry completely.
4. Repeat step 3 three more times. You are layering a total of 4 drops of dye on your starting line.
5. Prepare 4 more test strips with identical candies (for example a total of 5 test strips prepared from 5 brown M&Ms)
6. Prepare 5 test strips for each type of candy you are testing
7. In a similar manner, prepare 5 strips for each of the colors of food coloring. These will be your “known” dye colors. Later you will be comparing the strips prepared from the candy dyes to the dyes in these “known” colors.

Prepare the solvent

1. Dissolve one-eighth teaspoon of salt in 4 cups of water (fill one-fourth teaspoon about half full) — this is close to a 0.1 percent salt solution.
2. Stir until the salt is completely dissolved.

Do the chromatography

1. Pour a small amount of the salt solution into the bottom of a transparent cup or drinking glass.
2. Clip two chromatography strips to a coffee stirrer and balance the stirrer across the top of the cup or drinking glass. The strips should hang down into the glass.
3. If needed, add more salt solution so the bottom edge of the test strip just touches the surface of the solvent (the salt water). Your starting line with the drop of color should be just above the surface of the salt water.
4. Allow the solvent to creep up the strip by capillary action, carrying dye with it until it is half an inch from the top of the strip.
5. Allow the test strips to dry. Use a pencil to mark how far the dye traveled up the strip.
6. Compare the dyes extracted from the candy to the “known” food color dyes.

Questions

• What colors do you see on the chromatogram?
• Are any of the strips similar?
• Where are the differences?
• Can you tell which food dyes were used to color the candy?

Also try the experiment with colored markers, powdered drink mix or flavored gelatin.

More Holiday Science Experiments

• How to Make Crystal Borax Snowflakes
• What's the Best Way to Keep Your Christmas Tree Fresh?

More Science Fair Projects

• High School Science Fair Projects
• Middle School Science Fair Projects
• Weather Experiments / Science Fair Projects
• How to Choose a Science Fair Project Topic
• Cool Science Experiments for Hot Summer Days

Further resources:

• Instructables
• Science Buddies
• Home Science Tools

Most of the light that streams to our eyes appears white or yellowish, but light, part of the electromagnetic spectrum, actually contains several wavelengths, which the human eye sees as different colors.

Violet has the shortest wavelength that people can see, while red has the longest. At both ends of the visible spectrum, there are wavelengths that people cannot see, such as ultraviolet and infrared radiation.

How a spectroscope works

A spectroscope or spectrometer splits light into the wavelengths that make it up. Early spectroscopes used prisms that split the light by refraction — bending the light waves as they passed through the glass. A good example of refraction is a rainbow, in which sunlight passes through raindrops and is split into its different colors.

Modern spectroscopes often replace the prism with narrow slits called diffraction grating. The slits spread the light into different wavelengths by different amounts, which makes it possible to measure the wavelengths.

Substances that emit light produce an emission spectrum. Very hot metals, for example, emit light in all wavelengths and appear "white-hot." On the other hand, gases, when heated, produce light only at certain wavelengths, depending on the elements that are present. Also, each element absorbs light at specific wavelengths, called an absorption spectrum. Absorption spectra can be used to identify elements.

Chemists discovered some elements — cesium (atomic number 55) and rubidium (atomic number 37), for example — by using a spectroscope. Knowing the absorption spectra of elements, astronomers use spectroscopes to determine the chemical composition of stars and other distant objects.

Spectroscopes need not be limited to professional scientists. Building your own spectroscope using everyday items takes just under an hour.

Materials needed

• A cardboard box: The box needs to be large enough to contain a CD or DVD. I used a medium priority shipping box, but small shipping boxes, shoe boxes or cereal boxes will work just as well.
• A DVD or CD: You won't be getting it back, so make sure it's one you don't mind losing.
• One or two business cards/3x5 cards: Business cards are thicker than standard index cards, so I felt they would let less light through. Some websites suggest using two single-edged razor blades, which would be thicker and certainly be straight, but paper cards are more child-friendly.
• A cardboard tube: A toilet paper tube or part of a paper towel or gift wrap tube works fine; larger tubes would, of course, need to be cut to a more manageable size.
• Aluminum tape or aluminum foil and glue: Aluminum tape can be found in most hardware stores, but standard foil from your kitchen and glue work effectively.
• Scissors or X-acto knife
• Cellophane tape
• Pen/pencil/marker
• Ruler

Overview

Light will enter your spectroscope through a small slit (the diffraction grating), reflect off the CD, and be seen through the viewing tube. The CD will help to ensure that the three elements line up correctly.

Procedure

Step 1: Begin by making a hole for the viewing tube. Set the CD on top of the box, about a half an inch from the left edge on the side you intend to place the tube. Use a pen to trace the circle in the middle of the CD.

Step 2: Center the tube over the circle and trace it. Move the tube over about half an inch and trace another circle. The two overlapping circles create an oval.

Step 3: Use scissors or an X-acto knife to cut the oval out of the box.

Step 4: Make the viewing slit. Turn the box to the right so that the viewing oval is on its side. Place the CD on the left-hand side of the box and draw another small circle to mark the location.

Step 5: Cut a small rectangle about half an inch wide and 2 inches high, with its base set on the circle created by the CD.

Step 6: Set the edges of two business cards parallel to each other over the rectangle, leaving a small gap between them. Make sure the gap is even, and not wider at the top or bottom.

If you decide to use razor blades, have the sharp edges create the slit between the two. Again, make sure the slit is even, and not larger at one end or the other.

Step 7: Stand the box up. Tape the CD to the wall opposite the viewing slit, with the printed side against the wall and the rainbow side pointed toward the slit. Make sure that the edge of the CD is the same distance from the box side as the slit.

Step 8: Seal up the box using the aluminum tape or aluminum foil. Cover any region where light might get in. Leave the section surrounding the viewing oval open.

Step 9: Insert the paper tube into the oval, with the interior end angled toward the CD. Make sure that your angle is correct by aiming the slit toward a source of light so that the full spectrum is visible. Tape the tube in place and use the aluminum tape or foil to seal up the edges.

Using your spectroscope

A good science fair project using your spectroscope is testing the hypothesis that different gases produce different spectra of light.

Aim your spectroscope at various light sources. Look for specific colors and notice the spacing between the colored lines.

An incandescent light bulb produces a continuous spectrum because it is a heated solid – a tungsten filament. A fluorescent bulb produces distinct colored lines because it contains mercury vapor.

Some other light sources to examine are a candle flame, a flashlight, yellow street lights, blue street lights, the flame from a Bunsen burner, a camping lantern and neon signs.

You can also examine sunlight, though you should NEVER LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN THROUGH YOUR SPECTROSCOPE. Instead, aim your instrument at the light bouncing off of a white wall.

More Science Fair Projects

• How to Choose a Science Fair Project Topic
• Middle School Science Fair Projects
• High School Science Fair Projects
• Weather Experiments / Science Fair Projects

Further resources:

• Illinois Institute of Technology: Science Fair Extravaganza
• NASA: Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO)
• NASA: Introduction to Spectroscopy

Earth's atmosphere surrounds the planet; it is the mixture of gases we breathe as air. As weather patterns move around, air particles may “bunch up” over a particular area. More particles mean increased atmospheric pressure.

When pressure is high, it prevents clouds from forming, and the weather is likely to be fair. When air pressure is low, clouds form more easily and there is a greater chance of rain or snow.

In this experiment, you will build a simple barometer and measure changes in atmospheric pressure.

What you will need:

• A jar with a wide base and a narrower mouth
• A balloon
• Rubber band
• Rubber cement
• Drinking straw
• Scissors
• Graph paper
• Marking pens

What to do:

1. Flatten one end of the drinking straw with your fingers, making about 1 inch of the straw flat. Use the scissors to clip the flattened end to a sharp point. It may be helpful to color this pointer with a bright color to make it easy to see.
2. Cut a piece out of balloon and stretch it tightly over the mouth of the jar. Use the rubber band to secure this membrane over the mouth of the jar like the top of a drum. The air trapped inside will stay at a fairly constant pressure because air particles can neither enter nor escape through the balloon covering the mouth of the jar.
3. Apply a strip of rubber cement along the stretched balloon from the center of the jar mouth to the edge. Fix the unflattened end of the drinking straw to the rubber cement so that most of the length of the straw, and the pointed end, protrudes past the edge of the jar. The straw should stick out at least 6 inches from the edge of the jar.
4. Divide a piece of graph paper into 7 columns, one for each day of the week. Tape the graph paper to a wall in a sheltered outdoor location and position your bottle barometer so that the tip of the straw is very close to (but not quite touching) the graph paper. Mark the graph paper to show the position of the barometer tip on the appropriate day. In your notebook, record the time of day and some notes about the weather conditions.
5. Move the barometer over to the next column and repeat your observations at the same time of day for at least three weeks replacing the graph paper as needed.

Results

If the weather has changed during your observational period, you should have noticed some corresponding changes in the position of your barometer’s tip. When air pressure is high, the air outside of the bottle will be heavier than the air inside of the bottle. The balloon will be sucked down into the bottle pushing the opposite end with the pointed tip higher on the graph.

Remember that high pressure usually means fair weather. When the air outside of the bottle is less dense than the air inside of the bottle (air pressure is low), the air inside the bottle will press against the balloon membrane. The balloon will stretch a little causing the pointer to be lower on the graph. Low pressure usually means a greater chance for rain or snow in the near future.

Weather is all around us. Earth's atmosphere surrounds the planet; it is the mixture of gases we breathe as air. As weather patterns move around, air particles may “bunch up” over a particular area.

More particles mean increased atmospheric pressure. When pressure is high, it prevents clouds from forming and the weather is likely to be fair. When air pressure is low, clouds form more easily and there is a greater chance of rain or snow.

Air pressure is just one factor in cloud formation. In this experiment, you will see what are some of the other factors that cause clouds and precipitation.

What you will need:

• 3 clean dry soda or water bottles with caps (1-liter size works best)
• Matches
• Water (room temperature)
• Flashlight
• Labels and marking pens

What to do:

1. Label one bottle “Control”, label the other two bottles “A” and “B”.
2. Pour enough water into each bottle to cover the bottom of the bottle.
3. With the help of an adult, light two matches at once and drop them into the control bottle. Very quickly screw the cap onto the bottle, trapping the smoke from the burning matches inside. Don’t worry that the water puts the matches out; there will be smoke particles trapped in the air inside of the bottle. Shake the bottle a few times.
4. With the bottle upright, squeeze the bottle to increase the pressure inside.
5. Have your helper hold the flashlight so that it shines into the bottle.
6. Observe carefully as you very quickly unscrew the cap to suddenly lower the air pressure inside the bottle. You should see a cloud briefly form inside the bottle. Watch carefully! The cloud only lasts for a few seconds. Record your observations.
7. Now repeat steps 3 and 4 with bottle “A.” This time, do not remove the cap. Observe this bottle for at least 3 minutes — is there any cloud formation without a sudden drop in air pressure?
8. Your last bottle does not get any matches. Simply cap the bottle, shake it a couple of times and then quickly uncap it to change the air pressure. Observe for at least 3 minutes. Is there any cloud formation without the additional particles from the smoke?

What happens if …

• You increase the number of matches you add to the bottle?
• You use cold water instead of warm?
• You use salt water and no matches? (Shake the bottle well to dissolve the salt)

By high school, students should be familiar with scientific methods and processes and have a grasp of basic science principles. Your high school science teacher will assign science fair projects with the goal of helping you develop the ability to apply knowledge of science processes to learn something new.

Doing a science fair project is like doing a real world job assignment. You will be using skills you have learned throughout your education to research a question or problem, develop possible solutions, design a test for your chosen solution and present your findings.

Project components

At the high school level, a science fair project typically must have the following components. However, you must carefully read the particular guidelines provided by your teacher or the science fair rules and follow them exactly.

Proposal: This is a very brief description of the experiment you plan to do. This short paragraph will help you get a very clear idea of what you are going to do. You may be required to turn this in to your teacher very early, before you do any other work. It allows the teacher to check that your planned experiment is safe, follows legal and ethical rules, and is not a simple demonstration.

Title: This is the name of your experiment. It is a good idea to use your science question as the title for your project.

Purpose: This is a statement describing what it is you want to find out by doing the experiment. It describes why you are interested in the topic that you chose and what you think you will learn. Students often include ideas about why the experiment is important and how the information you learn could benefit others.

Hypothesis: This is a prediction of what you think will happen in the experiment. This prediction must be based on some research, prior knowledge or observations. It should be stated in an “If/Then” format.

     “If soil type affects erosion rates, then sandy soils will erode faster than clay soils.”

Materials list: All the equipment and resources needed to do the experiment.

Procedure: This is a step-by-step set of instructions for the experiment. It must be very detailed and include accurate measurements of materials needed for each step.

Results: This is where you document each phase of the experiment. It often includes experiment in different stages as well.

Research paper: This is usually a 2-3 page paper on a topic related to your experiment. You will include a history of similar experiments or inventions and their real-world applications. Define any specialized terms used in the experiment and show any mathematical formulas that you had to use.

Bibliography and References

Science fair project ideas

Stumped for ideas? First, review our guide on how to choose a science fair project. If you still need some help, here are some ideas for good science fair projects at the high school level.

Idea No. 1: How do changes in acidity affect the survival rates of an invertebrate population?

*Remember that it is against the rules in most science fairs to use vertebrate animals as subjects. Brine shrimp are not expensive and can be used as subjects for a variety of projects.*

1. In your background research, determine the average pH of the surface or groundwater in different areas of the country. Discuss how and why acid rain forms and how people monitor environmental pH. Find out what is being done to reduce acid rain and what might be the consequences of failing to control the problem.

2. Hatch some brine shrimp eggs (obtained from a science supply website or catalog) in a glass container. Shrimp should be hatched in a saltwater solution (1 teaspoon non-iodized or sea salt per cup of distilled water). Use baking soda and a pH meter or litmus paper to adjust the pH of the hatchery to about 7.5.

3. Hypothesize about the effects of an increasingly acid environment on the animals.

4. Divide the shrimp into several groups in different containers, being sure to leave a control group in the original hatchery and keeping it at a pH of 7.5.

5. Over a period of days, increase the pH of the test aquariums slowly by adding a few drops of white vinegar to the water each day. Adjust the pH slowly (abrupt changes will kill the shrimp) for each test group until the water pH is equal to the pH levels of water in different parts of the country.

6. Feed brine shrimp a few grains of yeast every other day, making sure to feed each group an equal amount.

Other possible brine shrimp projects could test the effects of caffeine or other pollutants. You could also try an experiment to test the effects of crowding the population.

Idea No. 2: What materials can be used to make successful pigments?

*Note that your dependent variable is the success of the pigments, how will you determine which were most successful?*

1. Research the ways in which ancient tribes or medieval artists created the paints they used for their masterpieces. Some of these were very dangerous and toxic such as using arsenic or mercuric sulfide, but many are safe and interesting to recreate as a science project that can also teach you some history.

2. Try polishing a small piece of copper with steel wool and brushing with vinegar. Let it dry and scrape off the green verdigris. Save the flakes in an envelope.

3. Scrape the soot that accumulates on a glass candle holder when the candle is burned.

4. Brew some very strong tea; add a few iron nails or iron filings, and a teaspoon of vinegar. Steep the mixture overnight and then remove the iron. Keep the mixture in a small glass jar with a lid.

5. Mix your pigments with raw egg to reconstitute them. This tempera will help the colors adhere to the paper. Research other fixatives used by artists throughout history.

6. Use smooth vellum paper (available at stationery or scrapbook stores) to simulate the paper used by medieval monks or use artist’s canvas for your testing surface.  If you are more interested in cave paintings use smooth tiles to simulate cave walls.

7. Hypothesize about other ways to obtain pigments and conduct experiments with other fixatives. Are there other plant materials that can be brewed like the tea to make other colors? Are there local minerals you could grind?

Remember to wear gloves and never taste any of your solutions. Use pots that you will not use to cook anything else if you experiment with local plants. It is a good idea to boil unknown plants outdoors as well.

Researching other historic processes like soap making, fabric dyes, papermaking or perfumes can also result in interesting projects.

Idea No. 3: What can be done to increase the amount of oil that can be moved through a pump?

1. Use a clear spray bottle to simulate a crude oil pumping station. Half-fill the bottle with pea-sized gravel and add 100 milliliters of vegetable oil. Replace the spray top, making sure that long bottom tube of the spray apparatus is as far down in the bottle as possible.

2. Attach one end of a piece of aquarium tubing to the outside of the spray head and put the other end in a graduated cylinder. Pump the spray handle to increase the pressure within the bottle. Determine how much oil you can pump out.

3. Hypothesize about different ways to increase the amount of oil you can pump from the bottle. How can you change conditions of viscosity, temperature or solution to increase the oil yield? In doing your research, look for ways in which oil companies obtain oil from underground reservoirs or shale formations.

Solve a problem

Science is problem solving, and there are problems to solve in every area of human interest. Start your science project by thinking about the problems in some area that interests you! You will be much more likely to complete a successful project if you choose a topic and a problem that you find interesting.

Here are some places to start:

• WonderHowTo.com: Science Experiments
• ScienceBuddies.org
• Vecchione, Glen, "100 Award Winning Science Fair Projects" (Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. New York, N.Y.)
• Gurstelle, William, "Backyard Ballistics" (Chicago Review Press, Inc., Chicago, Ill.)

Related:

• Cool Science Experiments for Hot Summer Days
• Science Experiments for Kids
• Make Your Own Spectroscope | Spectroscopy Science Fair Project

So, your science teacher has announced that you are required to do a science fair project this semester. First of all … Don’t Panic! Yes, it is going to be a lot of work, but with a little help, it will also be interesting and you may even enjoy it.

The first step in completing a long-term science project is to completely understand your teacher’s requirements or the rules for the science fair you will be entering. Read the instructions carefully and ask questions if you need clarification.

Is the project for a Biology class, so you need to consider only projects in the Life Sciences, or are you in Physics, so you need to think about engineering projects? Make sure you know what type of project is required for your class.

Five types of science projects

There are five basic types of science projects.

Descriptive: This is basically a science report that describes an existing situation — global climate change, for example — with maybe a visual aid requirement. This type of project is usually required in elementary or middle school rather than high school.

Collection: Collecting leaves or insects is a common project for elementary or middle school. Most high school teachers require more than a simple collection.

Demonstration: This type of project is a demonstration of a known science principle or phenomenon, such as floating a needle to demonstrate water tension. You aren’t really learning anything new. Check with your instructor to see if this type of project is allowed.

Engineering: This type of project involves designing, analyzing and improving a device, material or technology. An engineering project involves building a prototype or developing a simulation to test the effectiveness of design changes or differing materials.

Experimentation: This is the type of project most commonly required at the high school level. Students are expected to use what they have learned about science processes to develop and carry out a “fair test” experiment and to report findings.

Selecting a topic

Once you are clear on the type of project required, it is time to move on to selecting the actual project. There are hundreds of books and online resources available with suggestions. How do you choose the topic that is right for you?

You will be spending quite a bit of time working on your project, so you want to choose a topic that truly interests you. One way to start is by making a mind web or mind map. Start with a big blank sheet of paper, draw a circle in the middle and label it with a word representing one of your interests. Draw several lines, or spokes, radiating from the central circle and free associate other words that you think of when you think about the central topic.

For example, if you choose “sports” as your central idea you might label the spokes “basketball, football, baseball, running, golf.” Next, draw several more lines from each of these spokes and write several questions for each of the topics. The best science questions usually begin with one of the following words: what, when, which, who, why, where or how. Try to write at least two questions for each of your spokes.

Eliminate irrelevant questions. Deciding what is “best” often means that you would be basing your results on your opinion instead of evidence. This is called “bias” and is not appropriate for science. Find the questions that have both an independent and a dependent variable. The independent variable is a factor that you can change in order to test the effects of the change. A dependent variable is something you can measure which shows the effect of the change that you made.

For example one of your questions might be: "When is the best time to work out?" This question has an independent variable — you can choose to work out at different times, but it lacks a way to measure which time is “best.” You need a dependent variable.  The easiest dependent variables to measure include numbers such as changes in size, time, speed, or distance. Some experimental questions have changes that cannot be measured with numbers and must be characteristics that can be easily described such as a change in color.

“Does running in the morning increase my heart rate more than running in the evening?” has both an independent variable (different workout times) and a dependent variable (heart rate — you are measuring the speed at which the heart beats.)  Notice the wording change — we have narrowed “working out” to “running.” We also have only three possible outcomes: heart rate can increase more in the morning, it can increase more in the evening, or it can be the same in the morning and evening.

Fair test

Next you have to design a “fair test.” In the example, you would have to make sure you did the same workout under the same conditions at different times of day. After all, if you ran a mile uphill in the morning and only a quarter-mile on level ground in the evening before measuring heart rate the test would hardly be fair! You also want to control as many other factors as possible. For example, you might find a place to run indoors so that weather would not change. The best experiments have only one factor that is changed – the independent variable. You also want to include several trials of the experiment, usually at least seven, to make sure any changes observed in the dependent variable were caused by changing the independent variable, not by chance. The more trials you do, the more certain your results will be.

Now you have the basis of a science project that is possible to do:

• Question: “Does running in the morning increase my heart rate more than running in the evening?”
• Independent variable: Different times of day
• Dependent variable: Heart rate
• Fair test: I am going to run the same distance under the same conditions twice a day every day for two weeks. I will take my pulse before I run and after I run and calculate the difference in heart rate. I will record the changes in heart rate and determine if the average difference is greater in the morning or the evening or if there is no difference.

Remember that the best experiments always suggest further experiments or questions. For example, if your average heart rate increases when you run in the morning does the same thing happen to other people? (Remember if you use others in your experiment you will need written permission from their parents if they are under 18.)

Still stumped? Check out some suggestions:

• High School Science Fair Projects

Related:

• Cool Science Experiments for Hot Summer Days
• Science Experiments for Kids

Children are natural scientists. Their curiosity is boundless, and with a little supervision during these easy science experiments, even very young children can do “real science.”

Many parents and caregivers wish to encourage children to investigate the world, but are unsure about their own ability to introduce science skills. It doesn’t need to be hard! Participate and play with your child; it can be a lot of fun for both of you. They will often surprise you with their ideas, and you might end up learning just as much as they do!

A few tips

1. Encourage children to use their senses to observe objects and events around them and use words to describe their environment. Ask them to describe sounds, textures, smells and, when appropriate, taste as well as color, shape and size. This helps develop vocabulary and observational skills.

2. Ask open ended questions such as: “What is it doing? What do you think will happen? How has it changed? How are these things the same? How are they different?”

3. Help kids to keep a record of their science time. Take photos or ask kids to draw “before and after” pictures to paste in a special science notebook. (Get one of the bound composition-style notebooks — a lab notebook just like a “real scientist” would use!) Write down descriptions and observations for younger children or video them talking about the project. Encourage older children to record their own thoughts.

4. Dress them in old clothes. Young children learn by doing; science can get messy, but kids are washable!

Sounds of science

Here are a couple of easy experiments that involve children listening to the world around them.

Sound Catalog

Ask the child to cover his or her eyes and tell you about every sound he or she hears. Keep a list.

Later ask him to draw or find pictures of the objects or animals he thinks made the sounds. Paste them in the science notebook.

Ask: “Which sounds were louder?” “Which were made by living things?”

Coat Hanger Radio

What you will need:

• Wire coat hangar
• Two pieces of string

1. Tie a piece of string to each end of the bottom of the coat hanger.

2. Have the child hold one string in each hand and lightly tap the coat hanger against objects made of different materials, such as a metal swing set and a tree trunk or wooden fence post. Ask: “What objects make louder sounds?” “What do you feel when you hold the string?” “What objects cause stronger vibrations?”

3. Older children can try wrapping a string around each index finger and putting their fingers in their ears when tapping the hanger against different objects. (Caution: don’t press fingers in too deep!) How does this change the sounds?

Mud Pie Science

These experiments are messy fun, and children learn about the properties of different substances.

What is dirt made of?

What you will need:

• Toy shovel or old spoon
• Zip-close plastic bags and labeling materials
• Old plastic bowls
• Science tray — an old cookie sheet with a rim works well
• Sheet of white paper and half a sheet of black paper. Tape the black over the bottom of the white sheet so that you have a piece of paper that is half-black and half-white.
• Optional: Magnifying glass

1. On your next walk outside with your child take along the toy shovel and several plastic bags. Help your child to collect dirt from several places around the neighborhood. Good spots to try are: your garden or back yard, silt from near a pond or creek, a sandy area such as a beach or sand box. Make sure to collect some dirt from around the base of a tree. You might also include some potting soil from the garden store.

2. Place each sample of dirt in a separate plastic bag. Have your child draw a simple symbol on a label to remind them where they collected the dirt. For example, a flower for the garden dirt or a wavy line for the creek. Stick the label on the plastic bag. Now they are keeping records like a real scientist!

3. Back at home put each dirt sample in a bowl. Ask the child to describe all the differences she can find between the dirt from different places.

4. Place the black and white papers in your science tray. Place a small spoonful of dirt from each area against the white and dark backgrounds and look for more differences. Use a magnifying glass for a closer look.

5. Ask your child questions such as: “What kind of dirt do you think is best for plants to grow in? “How is the dirt from under the tree the same as the potting soil?” “How is the garden dirt different from the sand?”

6. Visit a library and check out a book about soil or rocks.

Making mud bricks

What you will need:

• Dirt samples from previous activity
• Plastic ice cube tray
• Plastic pitcher for water
• Old plastic bowls and spoons

1. Allow your child to mix each dirt sample with water to make mud. Encourage him to compare the texture, color and other differences that adding water to each sample makes.

2. Show your child how to fill the wells of the ice cube tray with mud. Leave the tray in a sunny location for a day or so then show her how to get the dried mud out of the tray.

3. Ask questions such as: “What kind of mud made the best bricks?” “What didn’t work so well?” “What do you think would happen if you built a house out of mud bricks and it rained?” “What do you think you could mix with the mud to make stronger bricks?”

4. Help your child find pictures of homes built with adobe and other natural materials.

Related:

• Oobleck Recipe: Dr. Seuss Science Project
• Fluids in Motion | Fun Science Experiments
• Cool Science Experiments for Hot Summer Days
• Frozen Fun: Try These Cold-Weather Science Experiments
• Cool Math Games

Want to help search for aliens and fight diseases right from your home computer?

A cornucopia of "volunteer computing" projects let you do that and more by donating some of the spare computational power on your desktop or laptop.

With these projects, rather than a giant, booked-up supercomputer crunching on a massive data set, thousands of regular ol' computers tackle a scientific problem that is broken up into piecemeal "jobs."

"Volunteer computing doesn’t get a single job done any faster [than a supercomputer], but it gets a whole lot of jobs done faster in a given time," said David Anderson, a research scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. "These projects encourage people to think more and learn more about science."

Anderson founded and leads a program called BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) that powers most science-related volunteer computing projects, many of which carry an "@home" suffix.

Often called "citizen science," this form of distributed computing has continued to catch on since it debuted in 1999 with the alien-seeking SETI@home project, which Anderson still directs.

Now over five and a half million computers around the world have one or more of the nearly 70 BOINC-enabled projects running on them. This network boasts a combined computing power of about three petaflops, or three quadrillion "floating point operations" – a calculation, essentially – per second, for a performance that beats the world's fastest supercomputer, currently the Cray Jaguar at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tenn.

To get your computer signed up to do some science, first download a free program from the websites for the projects of interest. These data-devouring applications work on Windows, Mac or Linux operating systems. The applications can run in the background while you use your computers or they can make good use of your machine's idle time.

BOINC automatically detects a computer's speed and memory to give it a job that will not gum up the works and detract from a user's experience, Anderson said.

Eventually, Anderson envisions tapping into all the extra processing power and memory on smartphones and tablet computers. So-called "virtual machine" programs that harmonize how computers handle jobs regardless of their make and model are also on BOINC's horizon, Anderson said.

Anderson hopes to involve both more scientists and computer owners in the effort. "There's a billion computers out there and that numbers' growing," he said. These machines, Anderson said, could provide the extra computational oomph needed to dramatically advance fields of science ranging from medicine to astrophysics.

Here is a look at eight of the most interesting, important or unusual volunteer science-related computing projects going on right now. (Stay tuned: TechNewsDaily will soon put together a list of "active" citizen science projects for personal computers that make scientific discovery an interactive, game-like experience.)

Einstein@home

This citizen project made news earlier this year when it announced in the journal Science the discovery of a previously unknown, unusual variety of radio pulsar. Pulsars are the ultradense, rapidly spinning remnants of giant stars that send out a beam of radiation through space like a lighthouse.

The finding represents the "first genuine astronomical discovery by a public volunteer distributed computing project," according to a statement by the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, which hosts the project along with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Back in 2005, scientists originally launched Einstein@home to search for gravitational waves that Albert Einstein thought up almost one hundred years ago as part of his general theory of relativity.

Physicists think even the largest of these waves in spacetime caused by the movement of mass – such as a pair of neutron stars orbiting each other – peter out to the subtlest of ripples by the time they reach Earth. As such, a gravitational has not been directly detected – yet.

To remedy that, Einstein@home lends a hand in sifting through reams of data collected by Caltech's Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO).

Since March of last year, the Einstein@home project has also searched for radio pulsars in data gleaned from the biggest radio dish in the world, the 1,000-foot (305-meter) Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

Einstein@home presently makes use of around a quarter million computers in 192 countries. Like many of the project programs, users can pull up a visualization or a screensaver that reflects the status of the pulsar search.

Malariacontrol.net

Malaria, a mosquito-borne disease, infects several hundred million people a year, killing at least a million of them. Malariacontrol.net models the dynamics of the pathogen's spread in sub-Saharan Africa, the hot bed of the pandemic. The program even accounts for the range of human responses to the illness, such as going to a clinic at the first sign of a fever or not seeking treatment at all.

The simulations should help epidemiologists and clinicians figure out what prevention and intervention strategies, including mosquito nets, insecticide sprays and medicines, might best turn back the malarial tide.

Since 2005, some 45,000 people have contributed computer time, and the results have led to the publication of scientific papers. The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute is behind the effort, and financial support comes from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

SETI@home

Users can scan the heavens for signs of aliens with this project. The SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) collective effort dates back decades, and since 1999 everyday people have played a major role in listening for evidence of proverbial little green men.

SETI@home parses data gathered by the giant Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Puerto Rico. The quarry: certain narrow-bandwidth radio signals not known to occur naturally that, if detected, would provide solid evidence of alien technologies out amongst the stars.

Processing 24 hours of data from Arecibo would take a typical single computer 330-some years, Anderson pointed out. But SETI@home's 120,000 active computers at any given time around the world can comb this data right as it comes in.

Folding@home

This long-running project launched about a year after SETI@home. Folding@home discovers how proteins get their shape during and after production in our cells. It is this three-dimensional, folded structure that determines the tiny molecule's function, or, in the case of diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, malfunction.

Though a non-BOINC volunteer computing project, Folding@home operates in much the same way. More than 200,000 active computers achieve a blistering speed of about three petaflops per second. At present, some 73 scientific papers have been published using Folding@home's results.

By learning how proteins fold, researchers hope to come with new drugs and therapies to treat a range of illnesses and uncover fundamental insights into biology. Every computer that gets signed up moves the project closer to its goals, Folding@home's website says.

Other similar protein-folding campaigns include Rosetta@home and POEM@home.

Climateprediction.net

Administered out of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, Climateprediction.net describes itself as the "world's largest climate forecasting experiment for the 21st century." As scientific simulations go, climate modeling gobbles up computing power like no other, Anderson said, due to the scale and number of variables in play. "These are giant, insanely complex programs that model every aspect of Earth's climate system," Anderson said.

Climateprediction.net's purview extends over seven projects. These include simulations of geoengineering, such as humankind adding fine particles to the atmosphere to reflect some sunlight, as well as modeling various epochs in history such as the "warm Medieval period."

More than 80 million years have been modeled to date, and some 50,000 computers continue to plug away. Early results obtained back in 2005 showed that global average temperature increases over the next century could be much greater – and more devastating – than other smaller models had shown. The findings, published in Nature, influenced the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report issued in late 2007, Anderson said.

Quake-Catcher Network

This BOINC-powered project does not do distributed computing in the number-crunching sense; instead, it acts like a distributed seismometer to detect earthquakes.

Laptop accelerometers, which detect if a laptop has been dropped, can pick up the ground shakes in an earthquake. For desktops, external, USB-compatible sensors are sold at cost for $49 on the project's website.

More than a thousand computers all over the world presently send seismic data in to the project's server. For now, the Quake-Catcher Network is strictly for science, not an early alarm system.

However, the dispersed setup allows for "really rapid transmission of information about earthquake locations and magnitudes," said Elizabeth Cochran, an assistant professor of seismology at the University of California, Riverside, and leader of the project. Down the road, the setup could help inform official earthquake monitoring centers, especially in countries with few full-fledged seismometers in service.

Having a lot of sensors deployed also increases the odds of narrowing down where a quake's epicenter is located, Anderson noted, "which among other things means you can detect a quake sooner," leading to crucial extra minutes of warning.

Virtual Prairie

The largest ecological simulation happening today is Virtual Prairie, led by the Universities of Houston and Rennes. It aims to model how competing plant species, from reeds to weeds to shrubs, carve out a living in the flat expanse of Midwestern grasslands. The simulation works through how the plants establish ecosystems and respond to animal foraging, pollution, seasonal variations and more.

But this project isn't just watching grass grow. Project leaders see a number of applications, such as the informing of biofuel harvesting practices, carbon capture to mitigate climate change and the preservation of biodiversity for future generations.

As of June 2010, some 3,400 active computers loaded with Virtual Prairie were zipping along at a speed of over six teraflops.

AQUA@home

The prospect of ultra-fast quantum computing has long enraptured computer scientists, physicists and cryptologists, among others. However, successfully building a full-fledged, useful quantum computer someday is likely to still take many years and require a few breakthroughs along the way.

But when that day arrives, Canada-based D-Wave Systems wants to be ready. With AQUA@home, the company harnesses volunteer computing time to help predict how well certain algorithms might run on quantum computers. Some 3,200 active users with about 6,000 computers at their disposal presently donate processing time to AQUA@home.

Geordie Rose, founder and chief technology officer at D-Wave Systems, said the project is exploring machine learning applications, such as image recognition – a sore spot for computers where humans still whip artificial intelligences.

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