Tier 1 Project Choices

  1. Is the Soup Ready? Measure How Much Water is Absorbed by Dried Beans
    Dried beans are a major ingredient in dishes served all over the world. In their dried form, they can be stored for years and then "brought back to life" by soaking them in water. In this cooking and food science fair project, you will measure just how much water is absorbed by beans when they rehydrate (soak up water). Can such a little bean really hold that much water?
  1. Egg Substitutes
    Have any of your friends or family members ever had an allergic reaction to eggs? In this science project idea, you'll investigate how to modify recipes so that even egg-allergic friends and family members can enjoy them.
  1. Shaking for Butter
    Hot pancakes with butter running down the sides, freshly baked biscuits and pastries with butter, hot flaky potatoes with melted butter. Yum! It seems like everything tastes better when you add butter. But what is butter and how is it made? In this food science fair project, you'll find out, and you'll test different conditions for making butter and determine the best method.
  1. Centripetal Force
    What keeps you in your seat of a giant loop-de-loop roller coaster? Surprisingly, it is not the seatbelt but the seat! It works because of something called centripetal force and it does much more than make a great roller coaster. It keeps a satellite in orbit and you in your bicycle seat during a turn. How does it work?
  1. Slip Sliding Away: Experimenting with Friction
    As you headed up the mountain to enjoy your last ski trip, you may have noticed a sign reading: Hazard! Icy Roads Ahead—Put On Your Chains. Putting chains on car tires increases the resistance between the tires and the road allowing the car to "grip" the road. This resistance to sliding is called friction. In this experiment, you will be investigating how to increase and decrease the friction between two surfaces.
  1. Balancing the Load: The See-Saw as a Simple Machine
    Have you ever tried to pull out a nail out of wood with your bare hands? Or have you tried to shove a staple through a stack of papers without a stapler? A hammer's claw, a stapler, a pair of pliers and a shovel are each examples of everyday tools that use levers to make our work easier.
  1. Slinking Slinkies
    Want to do a project with a toy your parents, or even grandparents, might have played with? Slinkies are fun toys that also make great science fair projects. In this experiment you can build an inclined plane to compare the walking speed of Slinky to Slinky Jr.
  1. The Bouba-Kiki Effect
    I am always amazed when I hear stories of expeditions into native lands, especially when voyagers are able to communicate with native peoples without sharing a language. Are there certain human sounds with meanings that can cross the language barrier? In this experiment you will investigate the Bouba-Kiki Effect to find out if abstract visual properties can be linked to sound.
  1. Do the Eyes Have It?
    Some people have a photographic memory and can memorize anything they see almost instantly! Wouldn't that make homework easy? Other people can remember almost anything they hear. Try this experiment to see which type of memory you have.
  1. Are You Left or Right Sided?
    Did you know that our brains are split into two parts, right inside our head? One half is the left brain and the other half is the right brain. Each side of your brain controls different parts of your body and most people are more dominant controlling one side than the other. Which side do you use the most? Will it affect how you use different parts of your body?
  1. Don't Get Burned! Measure the UV Index at Different Times of the Day
    It's true that the light from the Sun provides the heat and light we need to survive here on Earth, but it also poses a threat. Ultraviolet (UV) rays in sunlight cause damage that can lead to early skin aging and even skin cancer. In this science fair project, find out when you need the most protection from UV rays by using a personal UV monitor to measure how the level of ultraviolet light changes during different parts of the day.
  1. What Color Are the Leaves Really Turning?
    Everyone loves the beautiful colors of fall, but where do they come from and how does the change in colors happen? In this project, you will uncover the hidden colors of fall by separating plant pigments with paper chromatography. What colors will you see?
  1. Radiant Radish Seeds
    We all know that plants need sunlight and water to grow big and tall. But did you know that inside seeds are baby plants, and that the fragile baby plant inside the seed needs to be protected? If you've ever had a sunburn, you also know that the sun gives off harmful radiation and heat. How much radiation and heat can a seed handle? Find out using some radish seeds, an oven, and your microwave!
  1. Soil Compaction
    Have you ever had to dig a hole in really hard dirt? It is a lot of work! In this experiment you can make an instrument to test the soil and find out how compacted it is, before you dig!
  1. Porosity and Particle Size
    Often, when we think of something that is solid we think about rocks. But in reality, rocks have tiny holes of air inside them. This is called porosity. In this experiment you can find out what it means to be "solid as a rock!"
  1. Gigantic, Invisible Triangles: Measuring Height (or Altitude) with an Inclinometer
    If you've ever wondered how tall that bridge is, or how high your kite was, then this could be a good project for you. You'll learn how you can use the mathematics of right triangles to measure the height of an object with two measurements that you can make on the ground.