Environmental Science Project Ideas

Related Links

Difficulty: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Easy (for beginners) Hard

Even though many cities have recycling programs, a lot of trash still ends up in the dump. Find out which materials will break down and which materials won't. Will the results of this experiment change which products you often buy? What does the phrase, "Like a breath of fresh air," mean to you? This common phrase can have different meanings: calming, relaxing, invigorating, energizing or CLEAN! After all, you never hear anyone say, "Like a breath of dirty air," do you? Find out how clean the air is in this simple experiment. Did you know that when you use fertilizer in your garden, it can eventually reach a lake, stream, or pond? There are many different chemicals present in fertilizers. How will they affect the aquatic organisms in the ecosystem? Look out! When you walk on the grass, you are squishing millions of micro-invertebrates! Just kidding, these animals are too small to squish. Learn how to catch them by making a Berlese funnel in this fun project that will teach you about soil. Chemicals from the Earth's atmosphere are making their way down to the planet! Not in spaceships, but in rain. The acid rain can infiltrate ground water, lakes, and streams. How does acid rain affect aquatic ecosystems? You might know that lead can be toxic, and that you can get lead poisoning from eating or inhaling old paint dust. Lead is called a heavy metal, and there are other sources of heavy metals that can be toxic, too. Silver, copper, mercury, nickel, cadmium, and chromium are all heavy metals that can be toxic in certain environments. In this experiment, find out if one common heavy metal, copper, can be toxic to an aquatic environment. The element lead is a neurotoxin that is particularly dangerous to young children. Among other uses, lead compounds were common paint additives until being phased out for safer titanium-based additives beginning in the 1960's. Lead compounds were also added to gasoline to prevent engine knocking, until being phased out beginning in the 1970's. Although paint and gasoline sold today no longer contain lead, soil can have contamination from older sources of lead, such as paint from old buildings. This project shows you how you can test soil in your neighborhood for lead contamination. What covers less than 10% of the Earth's surface, yet is a vital natural resource for terrestrial life? What filters ground water and supports most of our food production, not to mention the production of building materials and paper? The answer, often overlooked, is: soil. With this project you can get all the dirt on soil formation, soil horizons, and the composition of different soils. When you think of environmental challenges facing the world, the first things that come to mind might be global warming, or loss of biodiversity, since these are often in the newspapers. A serious problem that you may not have heard about is soil erosion. Why is soil so important? What is the danger of erosion? How can we measure soil erosion? What can be done to prevent it? Check out this project and you can start finding answers. Did you know that soils can be alkaline, neutral, or acidic? Most plants grow best in soil near neutral pH, but some plants prefer slightly acidic and others slightly alkaline soil. What is the pH of the soil in your garden? What happens to the pH of water that comes in contact with soil? Here's how to find out. Here is an interesting project that could be approached from several different scientific angles: Environmental Science, Weather & Atmosphere, Chemistry, or Plant Biology. You can probably think of your own variations to emphasize the scientific area that most interests you. One way to conserve water is to find safe ways to use it more than once. Here is a project to test whether greywater (water that has been used for washing or bathing) can be used for watering ornamental plants. This elegant project employs a scientific approach that is particularly valuable in Environmental Science, but can be applied to other areas as well. The approach has three steps: 1) from your observations in the field, form a hypothesis; 2) create a simplified model system to test your hypothesis; 3) repeat your experiment in the field (taking into account what you learned from your model). The third step "closes the loop" and helps you to see if your initial conclusions from your simplified system are valid in the real world. Take a look at the project and see how it was done. Interested in helping the environment, and don't mind getting dirty? In this project you get to mix it up with earthworms, soil, and various types of organic kitchen scraps. The basic idea is to set up small earthworm colonies to compost different types of food waste. You test the soils in each type to see how diet affects both the earthworm population and the nutrients they put back into the soil. This project takes a little time, but it's worth it. You'll help the environment and learn about the remarkable recycling skills of the under-appreciated earthworm. To survive, we need oxygen in the air we breathe. Oxygen is also essential for most aquatic organisms, but there is much less oxygen available in water than in air. How much oxygen can dissolve in water? Does the temperature of the water matter? Learn how to measure dissolved oxygen and then see how oxygen concentration changes with water temperature. Ozone in the stratosphere protects the earth by absorbing harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. However, when ozone occurs in the troposphere, i.e., the air that we breathe, it is harmful to health. In this project you can use data from EPA monitoring stations to analyze the weather/climate conditions that can lead to harmful ozone levels. This project is a great way to "bring home" the concept of energy use. All you need to get started is a good-sized sample of monthly electric bills from households in your area. Building from this simple beginning, you can ask questions that can take you in many different directions. For example: How much electricity does the "average" person in your area use per month? How much does electricity use vary among different families?

Additional Project Ideas

Note: The following project ideas are abbreviated, without notes to start your background research or a procedure for how to do the experiment. You can identify abbreviated project ideas by the asterisk at the end of the title. If you want a project idea with full instructions, please pick one without an asterisk.

No one can deny the devastating consequences of an oil spill on the local wildlife. Oil affects all levels of the ecosystem, from plants to fish and birds. What happens to water plants if you add motor oil to their pot? What is the effect of motor oil on the health of a goldfish, or water insects? What happens to the barbs of a bird feather if they... Some plants use a lot of water, and some are very drought-tolerant. Drought-tolerant grasses are good for water conservation because they require less water to grow and stay green. How much less water do they need? Which types of grass are drought-tolerant? You can buy different types or brands of grass seed at your nursery that claim to be... Coal, gas, and oil are energy resources that are not renewable, meaning that once we use up the world's supply of these natural resources there will not be any left. There is a lot of debate about how long these resources will last. One way to ensure that we will not find ourselves in an energy crisis is to develop energy resources that are... Survey your area to find out which species of plants and animals live there. You might be surprised to find out that something you grew up thinking was very common, is actually quite unique! For example, if you live in the great plains, then you may think that prairie dogs are a nuisance or a pest. Actually, some species of prairie dogs are only... Visit your local landfill to collect dumping statistics by watching the types of trash people bring to the dump. Identify problem areas and types of waste that are commonly brought to the dump. Propose new uses for common landfill problems like tires, construction materials, plastics, appliances, and computer parts. Measure packaging materials of... How much water do you use? Conserving water can do more than save your parents' money, it can also save freshwater ecosystems, wetlands, and watersheds. Some companies are trying to help fix the problem by making low flow faucets and showerheads. How well do they work? How much water can you save? Go to the hardware store to buy a few of the... It is important to ensure that we all have good clean water to drink that is not contaminated by heavy metals or chemicals. One common pollutant in a water supply is lead in old pipes or paints that can leach into the water and cause lead poisoning. There are different kits available for testing the presence of lead and other contaminants in... Many people routinely use fertilizer for crops, gardens, and lawns. What people don't know is that each time they apply fertilizer, the fertilizer seeps through the soil into the water table. This can eventually lead to the contamination of a local water source, like a stream, pond, lake, bay, or ocean. This is an especially big problem for... Some people worry that modern electronic devices can give off harmful electromagnetic radiation, called EMF. Test your computer, radio, cell phone, computer, TV, or microwave for electromagnetic radiation. You can also try growing a sensitive organism, like flies, yeast or worms, to see if a potential source of electromagnetic radiation has an... Smog days are often posted in your local newspaper. Check how many smog days your city has had in the last year, how does it compare to other years? You can also take pictures of your city landscape on high and low smog days. How do the pictures compare? How does smog in the atmosphere affect visibility? What is smog made of? (EPA, 2006) Do your parents like to garden? Then you might have a beautiful lawn surrounded by flowers, or a vegetable garden. Humans have been introducing plants to our landscapes for centuries, which has dramatically altered the natural habitat of many environments. Chances are, the landscape you live in is not a natural landscape. One movement is to... The conversion of forested to unforested areas has been occurring since humans began to impact and change their environments during the agricultural revolution. Recently deforestation has become a global problem, particularly for developing industrial countries and countries with very large populations. You can use satellite mapping resources to... Our forests are a very important natural resource that need to be managed wisely. We use wood products for many different purposes: building materials, paper, cardboard, furniture, fuel, etc. How can we use wood products in a sustainable manner? You can do experiments that examine the growth time of different tree species to see which are good... The ozone layer is important for blocking most of the harmful radiation that comes from the sun. You can find maps of the ozone layer and compare different regions of the globe for ozone coverage. Where are the problem areas? Is there a difference in ozone coverage between different hemispheres? Populated and un-populated areas? In atmospheric... Invasive species are organisms (either plant or animal) that have been introduced into a new, non-native area and spread rapidly in the new environment due to a lack of regulation by predators. Frequently, invasive species will out-compete native species for resources which can put native species at risk. This is an especially big problem for... When you go to the beach, you may not know if the beach is natural or man-made. The popularity of sandy beaches prompted developers in the past to bring in sand to cover rocky shorelines and turn them into more popular sandy beaches. However, the actions of the tides, currents and waves carried the extra sand out into the reef, endangering the... Silt is a fine sediment that collects on the bottoms of rivers, streams and lakes. The natural process of the decay of organisms into the water can lead to the production of silt at the bottom of a lake. Silt can be a rich source of nutrients for fish and bottom dwellers like crayfish. However, it can also be introduced by unnatural processes. One... The sustainability of our ocean fisheries is a topic of concern for many, including environmentalists and fishermen who make their living on the bounty of the sea. It is important to use sustainable fishing practices so that our fisheries are not over-fished leading to a decline in productivity. Some states require fish markets to post information... The sustainability of our planet's resources ultimately depends upon our actions as citizens. How much we drive, what we eat, whether we have pets, and whether we recycle are all individual actions that affect the sustainability of the Earth's resources. Learn how ecological footprinting works and figure out how big your footprint is. How big is...

Resources

Here are some helpful websites for doing a project in environmental science:

Here is a great resource for investigating invasive species, providing a large database of pictures of common invasive species:
Douce, G.K. and D.J. Moorhead, 2006. "Invasive Species," Tifton, GA: University of Georgia. [accessed: 3/1/2006] http://www.invasive.org/.
The Environmental Protection Agency is a premier resource for information about the environment, and provides information about environmental hazards, maps of air quality, water and energy conservation, and much more:
EPA, 2006. "U.S. Environmental Protection Agency," Washington, D.C. [accessed: 3/1/2006] http://www.epa.gov/.
Here is a great explanation of water quality issues, chemistry, testing, and treatment methods:
Haman, D.Z. and D.B. Bottcher, 1986. "Home Water Quality and Safety," Gainesville, FL: University of Florida, IFAS Extension. [accessed: 3/1/2006] http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/AE009.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium has this great resource for studying our ocean fisheries and sustainability:
Monterey Bay Aquarium, 2006. "Seafood Watch: Make Choices for Healthy Oceans," Monterey, CA. [accessed: 3/1/2006] http://www.mbayaq.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp.
Find out about tree planting, identifying tree species, tree diseases, the backyard forest program, and what you can do to conserve trees and forests from the National Arbor Day Foundation:
National Arbor Day Foundation, 2006. "National Arbor Day Foundation," Washington, D.C. [accessed: 3/1/2006] http://www.arborday.org/index.cfm.
Visit the National Park Service to learn more about nature, wildlife, and conservation issues or find a national park near you to conduct your research:
NPS, 2006. "National Park Service," Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, U.S. Dept. of the Interior. [accessed: 3/1/2006] http://www.nps.gov/.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO is an excellent resource for experiments concerning renewable energy and natural resources:
NREL, 2006. "National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Innovation for Our Energy Future," Golden, CO: NREL, U.S. Dept. of Energy. [accessed: 3/1/2006] http://www.nrel.gov/.
Here is an online ecological footprint calculator. Take the online quiz, answer the questions, and you can find out how big your footprint is:
Redefining Progress, 2002. "Ecological Footprint Quiz," Washington, D.C. [accessed: 3/1/2006] http://www.myfootprint.org/.
Here is another ecological footprint calculator which is better for younger scientists at the elementary grade levels:
Redefining Progress, 2004. "Adventures With Bobbie Bigfoot," Washington, D.C. [accessed: 3/1/2006] http://www.kidsfootprint.org/index.html.
From the Agricultural Research Service find all kinds of information about agricutural resources and management, including a specific project on soil erosion:
USDA ARS, 2005. "USDA Agricultural Research Service Kids Pages" Washington, D.C. [accessed: 3/1/2006] http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/kids/fair/ideasframe.htm.
From the Forest Service find all kinds of information about resource management, invasive species, fire control, grasslands, oil and gas exploration, and conservation efforts in your region:
USDA Forest Service, 2006. "USDA Forest Service: 100 Years of Caring for the Land and Serving People," Washington, D.C. [accessed: 3/1/2006] http://www.fs.fed.us/.
This site from the Watershed Management Council provides information on water quality, resource management, species diversity, aquatic ecosystems, and restoration:
WMC, 2006. "Watershed Management Council: Advancing the Art and Science of Watershed Management," Boise, ID: Watershed Management Council. [accessed: 3/1/2006] http://www.watershed.org/wmc/index.php.
This WWF is not for wrestling enthusiasts! Find information on conservation, biodiversity, habitats, climate, seafood guides, wood guides, and much more:
WWF, 2006. "World Wildlife Fund," Gland, Switzerland: World Wildlife Fund, International. [accessed: 3/1/2006] http://ld.panda.org/index.cfm.