Science Fair Project Ideas for Energy and the Environment
Energy sources and how they affect the environment are popular topics. Regardless of how you feel about these issues, they pose valid questions that should be addressed. They can also make for interesting and informative science projects. Students should do their own research and reach their own conclusions, but parents can and should help, especially if it comes to using electricity, a car or other potentially dangerous items.
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Solar Power
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Solar power is a popular alternative energy topic. Solar energy is used to power many things, including calculators and entire homes. Students can build solar-powered radios and other projects. These can be used to demonstrate the angles necessary for optimum solar power and the costs and benefits of solar power.
Wind Power
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Students can build a small and simple turbine to demonstrate wind power and how it can be used to generate electricity. Wind power works using principles of magnetism, so magnets can also be used to illustrate principles of wind power.
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Biomass
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Using the stuff we have in and around our house to make or save power is perfect for a science project because it uses stuff everyone has. Biomass energy is made by burning stuff like food waste, wood and dead plants; the heat from burning the mass is used to boil water and drive the steam into a generator. Steam projects can demonstrate the usefulness of biomass as an energy source. Alternatively, you can use these kinds of materials to create a compost heap, which degrades over time and then can be used as a natural fertilizer for plants and crops. Almost anyone can build or make a compost container.
Oil and Ethanol
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The use of oil and ethanol for energy is hotly debated. Students can grow corn, showing the rate of growth and amount of planting required to keep up with ethanol demands. They can also examine the effects ethanol production has on food prices due to the diversion of land to energy production rather than food production. The many different uses of oil beyond gasoline can be explored as a way to discuss offsetting the costs of oil as energy. Other topics could be the actual environmental and energy costs of growing, harvesting and processing corn for ethanol, or a comparison between the heat and pollution released by burning oil versus burning ethanol.
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References
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