Elementary School Science Fair Experiment Ideas
Elementary school science fair experiments are an enjoyable way for students to gain science experience, according to ScienceNerdDepot.com. These kinds of experiments allow young students to develop creativity, acquire independent research skills, build analytical thinking skills and maybe even determine a future career path in a scientific area. Students can choose from several elementary school science fair experiment ideas that can impress classmates, teachers and science fair judges.
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Sound Waves
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One science fair experiment for elementary school students allows them to investigate how decreasing the amount of air in a container affects the container's ability to transmit sound, according to ScienceBuddies.org. In this experiment, students attach a bell to a piece of wire and poke the other end of the wire into a rubber stopper that fits tightly onto a glass flask. They then shake the flask from side to side to ring the bell and record their observations. Afterward, they add water to the flask, bring the water to a boil (with the rubber stopper removed) and then (carefully, to avoid burning themselves) they replace the stopper and shake the flask from side to side again. Students will notice the difference in the sound the bell makes in air versus water. This physics experiment teaches students that sound is produced by vibrations from objects and that these vibrations move in waves through solids, liquids and gases differently.
Fertilizers
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Another elementary school science fair experiment requires students to compare plants grown without nitrogen fertilizers with those grown with these fertilizers. Students pour soil into eight pots, labeling four of them "Nitrogen" and four "No Nitrogen." They then plant seeds in each pot, place the pots near a sunny window, pour regular water into the "No Nitrogen" pots and pour water mixed with nitrogen fertilizer into the other four pots. As the plants grow to maturity, students measure them. They then average the measurements of the "Nitrogen" pots and compare this number with that of the "No Nitrogen" pots. This plant biology experiment shows students how well plants grow when fertilizer containing nitrogen is added to the soil, as nitrogen builds protein and nucleic acids to grow healthy stems and leaves.
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Rock Oil
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Elementary school students can conduct a science fair experiment that allows them to see what types of rocks petroleum engineers explore when trying to find the last oil reserves on Earth. They should place a sample of limestone, sandstone and shale on a paper plate and observe any pores and small spaces they see in each piece of rock. Students then add three drops of mineral oil to each sedimentary rock sample and examine the samples after 30 minutes and again after an hour. At this point, they can determine which rock absorbs the oil quickly, like a sponge, and which one is impermeable to oil, meaning it does not allow oil to pass through. This geology experiment teaches students which stones make the best storage rocks for oil.
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References
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