In the last blog post we covered how to make a naked egg. Now we are going to turn the naked eggs you produced into a science project based on the principle of osmosis. Hopefully more than one of the six eggs you started out with survived the process and became a naked egg. If not, you can always do the experiment again.

To start this science project you need  a couple of naked eggs ready to use. You will also need separate containers for the eggs which can hold some liquid along with the eggs. You can  use coffee mugs for the purpose. Now take one shell-less naked egg and cover it with water. Take the other egg and cover it with corn syrup. Place the mugs into fridge for 24 hours.

When you take the eggs out of the corn syrup and water respectively you will find a difference between the two naked eggs. The egg that sat all day in water will be plump and firm, while the one which was in corn syrup will be shriveled and flabby. Why did this happen? The eggs in question have a semi permeable membrane, which means that small molecules can go through the membrane and large ones can not.

The egg white in the naked egg is 90% water and so when the egg is kept in water nothing much happens to it. However the corn syrup is just 25 per cent water and has large molecules which can not move past the egg membrane. So to balance out the different concentrations of water in the solution the water inside the egg white moves out making the egg shrivel. Get more experiments here.

What does one mean by a naked egg? An egg without a shell. It would make for an interesting science project to make a naked egg. And no its not as simple as hard boiling the egg and peeling off the shell. What we are going to do is actually dissolve the shell that surrounds the egg so that you get a translucent egg.  Sounds exciting? So lets get started.

Take about six eggs to start with. Now place them in a container large enough to keep the eggs with them touching each other. Cover the eggs with vinegar. You will see some bubbles coming up. Now cover the container and place it in the fridge for 24 hours.  After that when you open the container you will see the shells have gone.

The egg membrane is the only thing that keeps them together. Scoop out the eggs with a large spoon and place in another container gently. The reason we took six eggs is that during this process some of the egg membranes may break and the egg may ooze out. You can throw away these eggs.

Now cover the remaining eggs with some fresh vinegar and again put it into the fridge for 24 hours. At the end of which time you will be able to gentle hold the egg without a shell in your hands and squeeze it. Check out more exciting science  experiments here.

Part of the magic of doing science projects is the fun experiments that you get to conduct along the way. For instance if you told a person that you would make a coin vibrate without touching it, most would think you are setting out to perform a magic trick. Not true, all you would be doing is putting good use to the science principles you know.

Most of the tricks that are performed by magicians on stage are actually just a tribute to science and some fancy hand work. The hand moves faster than the eye can see after some practice and it becomes magic. That is why magicians never tell their secrets. It would kill the MAGIC!

For those of you still curious about how to make that coin vibrate, here’s the deal. You get a glass bottle and a coin which will cover the opening completely. Now place the bottle in the fridge and chill it. Take out the empty and by now cold bottle and place the coin on top of its opening.

Now place the bottle on a table with the coin on top. Hold the bottle with both hands and wait for the bottle to warm up. Soon you will see the coin begin to vibrate. Why does it happen? You heated the air inside the bottle with your hands. The air expanded and tried to escape from the mouth of the bottle! Get more Air Pressure Experiments here.

A laser is an interesting instrument. It allows you to study the nature of light and darkness. You can see what makes up a single stream of focused light if you know just how to split it up.

The word “LASER” stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Which means that it is essentially a constant stream of photons are emitted from a light source. A single beam allows the light to be focused on any point in the room that you desire.

This is what is also used as a pointer in presentations where the slide is reflected on a screen and the speaker needs to pin point a specific part. It can be a fun toy to play with. It can also be a good tool to learn more about the nature of light.

For experiments related to the use of lasers take a look at this article here. There are simple science experiments for you to perform which you will enjoy. And if you have access to a fog machine it will really look awesome.

Imagine interesting science projects that actually are fun to play with. Making sparks fly from the ends of swords or getting a gentle fog to descend on the room. These are not so difficult to do when you know the science behind them. And they can become a part of your science fair project with ease.

Simple but working science projects that actually do something are always more interesting than detailed models that do nothing. That is why even something as simple as a parachute dropping an egg from a height is much more interesting than charts and reports.

So the minute you add motion to the project it captures the attention of the viewers. If you add an interactive element it will become even more popular. That is why the games at a fair are more popular than the displays. Ever notice that they have the largest crowds?

They are also more likely to catch the attention of the judges. So put on your thinking cap and come up with interesting games and working models that use science principles. Check out the Fun Aero plane that you can make here. It would be fun to fly this at the science fair.

For a plant to grow healthy and strong it needs light, water, and fertile soil to grow in, but what happens of the light it gets is not enough? Is there an optimum level of light that the plant must have to grow well? In this science experiment we are going to use three plants of the same kind and roughly of the same size to check this fact out.

Does the plant that gets less light grow more or less than the one which gets a whole lot more light? To make the experiment easier to control we will use just artificial light on all three plants. We will set the three plants in cubicles in similar pots, but we will vary the quality of light that each plant will receive. To do so we will use a 25 watt bulb, a 100 watt bulb and a 200 watt bulb.

Now make a record chart for your observations of each plant. Make sure that the lights are far enough from the plants so that the heat generated from them does not damage the plants. Observe the condition of the plants over a period of 10 days on a daily basis. At the end of ten days which plant is looking the healthiest? Look out for more science experiments here.

Who said that science experiments had to be done in labs? You can have your own set of experiments in the kitchen. I know that I can cook potatoes faster if I mix them with some aborigines. I don’t know why, but something about the two vegetables being cooked together tends to speed up the cooking time needed.

Here are a few ideas that you can try out.  Does adding salt to water make it boil faster than the plain water? Try boiling water in two pans and add a spoonful of salt to one of them. Now time them both as the water comes to a boil and check which one boiled faster.

You can even use some fruit in the kitchen to generate electricity. Get some alligator clips and hook them up to copper and zinc electrodes. Add a miniature light bulb to complete the circuit and you will have a bright science project. Use different types of citrus fruits to see which ones generate the power longest.

There is no dearth of experiments for you to perform in the kitchen. And why restrict yourself to science experiments in the kitchen alone? You can get any number of fun projects to do here. Check them out and get started right away.

Remember the science fiction freeze gun which makes the person incapable of moving? Thanks to some science experiments being conducted by researchers these may no longer be fiction very long. The use of electrical impulses by scientists has succeeded in affecting the brains of participants in the experiment by slowing down their physical actions.

Sound familiar? Yes indeed it is possible to affect the actions of a person as Alek Pogosyan of the University College London has proved. The research is actually in aid of developing treatments for those suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Also the activities of the people did not diminish all together like in the science fictions movies.

The activities merely slowed down by about 10 per cent. In Parkinson’s disease the beta activity of the neurons gets accelerated considerably. And before a normal person makes a voluntary movement this same beta activity of the brain drops considerably. By using electrical stimulation the scientists increased the beta activity in the participants of the study.

This made them slow down their physical movements.  Maybe the gun to freeze all movements may not become a reality any time soon, but this study has proved that it is a distinct possibility. Try out other interesting science projects here.

Have you ever considered how much preparation goes into any mission planned to go into space? The number of science projects and science experiments that have been conducted on every single piece of equipment that will be used? It is an industry where the smallest error can make the difference between life and death.

A malfunctioning bulb can actually kill you in outer space. That is why everything has to be perfect. This is not a place where you can sit back and say 80% is good enough. If it is not 100% good it can not be used. That is why you find most people checking and rechecking every fact that they can before any rocket launch.

It is also a place where constant innovation and improvements are needed. To find a better way to do something in a shorter time and more efficiently is a constant ongoing effort. That is why even you high school science project could help a rocket scientist team.

Of course the original project may need some working on, but you will get credit for the original idea. So if you want to really make a mark with your science project you can think of super specializing in the field that will help the next mission going in to space. Consider some part that can be improved and get to work on it.

The idea of making a science project based on huge rocks slamming into planets and leaving craters is exciting and scary from a child’s perspective. To explain how and why the craters are formed you can touch on concepts of atmosphere, gravity and vacuum of space.

To simplify the concepts for elementary school kids try to make your own craters in dough and flour.  Get a big baking pan and keep a mixing bowl handy. Also collect a number of things to make craters with. Get all sizes and shapes possible. Ping pong balls, golf balls, and even a tennis ball will do.  And of course get some flour and water to mix up the dough.

Now get set to make your own landscape. Get the baking pan out and add some dry flour to it in soft peaks. Make a basic landscape full of many rising “mountains”. Now get those balls out. Check out what kinds of craters they make in half the baking pan area. Compare shapes and depths of all the different objects.

Now mix up some flour with water and add that dough to the other half of the baking pan. Try and make craters in this part too. See how the same shapes make different sized craters in the dough. Try and explain the concept of density to them as well. Then you can graduate to more complex science projects.