Steve visits many science fairs throughout the year and listens to students share their projects. This spring, he found a young man who did an amazing project on the Greenhouse Effect. Saul, a second grader, didn’t just research his topic, he turned it into a true science fair project.
The greenhouse effect is actually a natural process that keeps the Earth warm in the vastness of space. When the sun’s rays hit the Earth, some pass through the atmosphere and some bounce back into space. The rays that pass through are absorbed and warm the Earth. The heat is radiated back up into the atmosphere and absorbed by greenhouse gases. The Earth stays warm.
The burning of fossil fuels releases more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The gases include carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. These gases have heat-trapping abilities. For more on the
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So, you’re about to assign science fair projects to your students… now what? No need to worry, the Spangler Science team has some tips to make the science fair fun, interesting, and educational for your students (and easier for you)!
First and foremost, if you are excited about the science fair, your students are sure to share your enthusiasm. Making science an integral part of your classroom throughout the year will help ignite students’ interest during science fair season.
Consider modeling a science fair experiment for the class. By doing so, your students will see firsthand how to come up with a hypothesis, create some tests to see the effect of a variable, and learn the difference between a demonstration and an experiment. If your class science fair project was going on around the same time that your students were working on their own projects at home, the gathering of data, making charts and graphs, and developing conclusions that you do as a class would be great practice for your students as they work on their individual projects. As we all know,
It’s science fair time for many schools across the country. If you’re a parent of a young scientist who is turning your kitchen into a laboratory, and you’re overwhelmed, here are some ways to make the project more meaningful. Participating in the school science fair is a fantastic opportunity to uncover the power of the scientific method. You’ll ask new questions, discover new science facts, conduct experiments that lead you to ask new questions and make new discoveries, and ultimately gain a new understanding of how science works. The best part is making the mini discoveries on your way to un-covering a conclusion. Watch the video to learn how to take the most popular science fair demonstration, the baking soda and vinegar volcano and turn it into a real science fair project.
For more help in finding a science fair project or getting science fair project ideas,
As parents, we know it’s important for our children to wear safety helmets when biking, skiing, skating or participating in any activity where there’s a chance of a fall or crash. But have you ever wondered which helmets are the best in protecting their noggins?
Third grader Jack Liebold took this question on for his science fair project. The problem? How do you test helmets without using real crash test people? Easy. He used honeydew melons to use the scientific method and test his hypothesis.
Jack joined me during my weekly newscast experiment on 9News to share his results and how he conducted his experiment.
If you’re a Seinfeld fan, you undoubtedly remember George Costanza’s double-dip chip episode where he takes a chip, dips it, take a bite and dips it again – the famous double-dip. The best line in the whole episode comes from the guy at the party who confronts George and says, “When you take a chip… just take one dip and end it!” When my son, Jack, saw the episode, the light bulb went on and a science fair project was born. Of course, this science-loving 5th grader isn’t the first to come up with such a test, but Jack wasn’t afraid to challenge others who’ve come up with the conclusion that the act of double-dipping your chip is no big deal. And the conclusion… you’ll have to look at the Petri Pudding picture below to see for yourself (hint: don’t double dip!)
If you’re looking for a cool science fair project, take a look at Jack’s Double-Dip Chip Challenge. Jack used Comic Life software on his iMac to present his science fair project in a more eye-catching style than the traditional
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