Archive for November, 2011

Should we all cycle everywhere?

The researchers involved with science projects based on the environment say that the Earth is being swallowed up by the pollution caused by green house gases. There are more things going wrong with the environment today due to human meddling than ever before. Environmentalists have serious concerns about the feasibility of the planet to support its growing human population.

What then is the solution to managing the pollution that we as a race have brought forth? Do we give up our smoke making industries and polluting lifestyles? How about the different means of transportation that use fossil fuels? Should we all cycle everywhere? Obviously that is not the solution.

The real solution would be to find a situation where the human race can live in harmony with the natural environment. A task that we have failed miserably given our bleak history. It may be already too late to reverse the damage that we have done to the environment, but at least we can be more careful with the resources that we have in the future.

Part of that process is developing new technologies so that the older ones which harm the environment can be put to rest. In this case any new idea which is environment friendly deserves a chance to be explored in a science project. So put on your thinking hats and come up with such possibilities.

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New vehicles to combat environmental concerns

Today there are many science projects that are dedicated to environmental concerns. The deteriorating form of the environment has many people crying that the planet will soon be lost to pollution. The industries are mainly blamed for this but they are not the only ones.The family car is also a culprit when it comes to increasing global warming thanks to the green house gases that it emits.

So scientists have come up with a new type of car which does not use the pollution causing fossil fuels. These new hybrid cars have the option of using fossil fuels but primarily run on renewable energy sources such as solar energy. The solar cells on the car harvest the energy of the sun. This is then converted into energy that is available for the car to run on.

Solar energy is not the only renewable source of energy that scientists are playing around with. They also have tried to harvest wind energy through turbines to run engines. The trouble lies in harvesting the energy constantly and storing it to be used as and when required. The automobile by Google seems to have had some success in this.

However it is by no means the last word in the business. Perhaps a new technology will come along and improve on what they have done. Perhaps it may be a result of your own science project. So what not work on these environmental concerns and do your bit to save the world.

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Sink or Swim

Why do somethings sink and others swim? That’s a topic that makes for an interesting science fair project. Iron is a heavy metal and a small coin made out of iron will sink. Paradoxically a huge boat made out of iron manages to float well enough to cross vast oceans.So what makes this same metal act in such different ways? And more importantly how do we make this into a science project?

It is all a matter of displacement as Archimedes told us. Archimedes principle states that a body immersed in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid.So as long as enough water gets displaced the object will float and if its does not then the object sinks.

Essentially this means that a certain diameter needs to be maintained for the object so that it will float. So we will make spherical shaped boats out of foil to check what the ideal diameter to float is. Now once the size is unable to push away enough water the boat will lose its buoyancy and sink.

So start from a specific size and then keep making larger sized boats out of foil till the largest one sinks. Then work backwards to see the smallest size that manages to float. Record all the data you generate. Take photographs for the display board and also ensure that you make some tables from the data that you have collected. It is a simple and interesting science fair project.

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Safe Landing with a Parachute

When you think of a parachute the first image that comes to mind is that of a skydiver. The canopy of the parachute overhead as the sky diver gently floats down to earth, but what makes the parachute a device safe enough to trust a life with? Can the size of the parachute matter? How about the material it is made from?What about the weight?

These are a few questions which when answered can translate into a good science fair project. The variables that you can consider include the load that parachute must carry. How heavy or light is the load? Is it a small stone or a big stuffed toy? Then think of the height from which it is to be dropped. Will you throw it down from the first floor or the top of the school roof?

What material will you use to make the parachute? Is there a specific length of string that you will be adhering to? How about the material of the string? The shape of the parachute can also be varied. In case of the sky diver we usually see a rectangular shaped one. However the parachute can be circular, or even triangular in shape.

The shape and weight of the parachute will affect the way the parachute functions.So keep all that in mind as you set out to build the ideal parachute for you load in the science project. Tabulate all your attempts and share the data on the display board to show how you got the best parachute for you load going.

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Making Cars Fly

The dream of every transportation engineer has been to make a small private car fly. While it would be a science project with many interesting possibilities, it is not one which can be undertaken in high school. Still we are going to attempt an experiment in aerodynamics by making small car models fly.

What we intend to do is construct catapults using three different types of elastic materials and then use them to launch our toy cars into flight. Essentially we will turn the potential energy of the elastic material into kinetic energy transferred to the cars launched by the catapult.

The object of the science project is to find which of the three different elastic materials has the most potential energy. This will be measured by how high the cars reach when launched by the different materials. The catapults can be used to launch five different car toys of different weights and sizes.

The data that you collect will then be compared to see which of the three given elastic materials managed to send the most cars soaring highest. That is the material which has the most potential energy out of the ones used in the science project. Make sure that all the data is tabled properly and displayed well.

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