Science fair projects for elementary kids can be easy and interesting. Along with inspiring your kids to like science, these types of projects also teach them how to give presentations to others and explain how things work. Here are a few science fair project ideas for elementary kids.
Science Fair Project Ideas
Taco Sauce Cleaner
Your kids are sure to enjoy the taco sauce cleaner science project. For this experiment, collect a handful of dirty pennies, taco sauce, vinegar, tomato paste and small plates. The plates will be the petri dish. To complete the project, your little science experimenter will need to cover the pennies with different ingredients to see which one does the best job of cleaning them.
Milk that Changes Colors
This science project teaches kids about molecules. To give it a go, they’ll need milk, a plate, dish-washing soap, cotton swabs and food coloring in red, blue, green and yellow. The first step is to cover the bottom of a dinner plate completely. Then, add one drop of each color of the food coloring to the milk. Use a cotton swab to touch each color to see what happens. Next, apply a drop of dish soap to the cotton swab and touch the colors again. Your kids will be amazed by the results.
Crash Test Helmets
If your kids decide to try this science fair project, they’ll be learning about how safety trials work and how to make a lab report. This experiment’s list of equipment includes a bike helmet, skateboard helmet, ski helmet and a small football helmet. You’ll also need to gather a camera, ladder, tarp and a measuring tape. Keep in mind that this is an outside project since your kids will be dropping helmeted melons from a height of about 8 feet to 10 feet. Fanatics sells a variety of helmets including football and bicycle helmets.
Make Fruit Batteries
Your kids might find it hard to believe that fruit can provide power. Because of this, they’re sure to enjoy experimenting with the alternate source of power. Lemons are a popular choice for making a fruit battery, but encourage your kids to try other kinds of fruit to see which one works best. Along with fruit, the project requires galvanized nails, a light to power, copper and alligator clip wires. You can order most of the things that you’ll need for this science project from Hardware World.
Lava Lamp
When it comes to science fair projects for elementary age kids, you can’t go wrong by encouraging them to try the lava lamp experiment. For this project, you’ll need a plastic soda bottle, food coloring, water, an Alka-Seltzer tablet and vegetable oil. The lava lamp project will teach your kids about the relationship between oil and water in the area of density. It will also let them experiment with the chemical reaction that occurs between a base and an acid. This is one of my favorite science fair project ideas!
Projects one, two and three are from Parenting.
Project four came from KidsActivities.com.
We found the lava lamp project at Home Science Tools.