Investigatory Science Project Topics

Investigatory science projects help students learn.

Science projects are an important part of the science curriculum for students. At the high school and elementary school level alike, investigatory science projects allow students to plan the steps to the project, develop a hypothesis, conduct the experiment and notice what takes place. Investigatory science projects will capture the student's interest when he has no idea how the experiment will end up.

Egg Flotation

How much salt do you have to add to a beaker of water to make an egg float? If your students don't know the answer to this question, they can conduct a simple experiment to find out. For this project, students need an egg, a beaker, water, salt and a tablespoon. Each student should put an egg into her beaker and notice how the egg will quickly sink. She should then add salt, 1 tbsp. at a time, until the egg begins to float. Salt water has different buoyancy than freshwater, which accounts for the egg's eventual flotation.

Sugar Crystals

Many adults know that products such as sugar and salt can form crystals. A student might not know this information, making a sugar crystal science project an effective investigatory assignment. For this experiment, the student needs 1 cup boiling water and 1/2 cup sugar. She mixes the sugar into the hot water and stirs it until it has fully dissolved. The student then ties one end of a piece of string to a pencil, places the pencil across the top of the receptacle containing the sugar water and lets the other end of the string hang into the water. She then puts the receptacle in a safe place and observes it daily. In a couple days, sugar crystals will begin to form on the string, and the crystal will grow quickly.

Bouncing Balls

If students are learning about physics, they may be interested in conducting an investigatory experiment about the degree of bounce in similar balls. This project is easy and requires just two basketballs and an air pump. Students should hypothesize about which would bounce higher -- a ball with more air or a ball with less air? The class may be divided on this topic. Students should then pump 3 psi of air into one ball and 5 psi into the other ball, then drop each ball from the same height. They'll learn that the ball with 5 psi of air bounces higher.

Cola Eruption

If you ask your students what will happen when you add half a pack of Mentos candies to a 2-liter bottle of diet cola, they'll likely have no idea. This project can be taught during a unit on chemistry and how two seemingly harmless products may have explosive chemical reactions when mixed together. This project is best done outside because of the mess it creates, and it's sure to excite your students. Unscrew the bottle of cola and set it on the ground. As quickly as you can, dump half a pack of Mentos into the bottle. What follows is a huge eruption as the dimples in the candy react with the carbon dioxide in the cola.

References

• Science Hound: Egg Flotation
• Science Kids at Home: Sugar Crystals
• Science Hound: Bouncing Balls
• Science Kids: Diet Coke & Mentos Eruption