Sociology Science Projects (24 results)
Sociology is the scientific study of social interactions, at both small and large scales. Sociologists ask big questions, such as "How are societies maintained?" and "How do societies change?"
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Although some of us may not like to admit it, everyone's afraid of something. Big dogs, thunderstorms, public speaking, heights: what are you most afraid of? Do you think grown-ups have the same fears as kids? How about first-graders and sixth-graders? Find out for yourself by doing this project.
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Do people treat someone differently based on his or her appearance? Specifically, how are their behaviors affected by the clothes a person wears? For instance, if somebody wears a formal suit, do you think others behave differently when interacting with that person compared to if he or she were wearing casual clothes, like blue jeans? In this science project, you will get to try and find out!
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Does your dog get bored when you are not home? Do you ever toss them a few treats right before you head out the door? What if you could keep them busy by automatically dispensing treats throughout the day? What about training them to sit in a certain place or even press a button by automatically rewarding them with treats? In this project you will build your own automatic dog (or cat, or other pet) treat dispenser that you can customize to react to different sensors.
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What causes the most stress for teenagers? Is it school? family relationships? peer pressure? worries about the future? Design a survey to find out what contributes to teens' stress levels. Possible variations include: How do teenagers deal with stress? Are today's teens more or less stressed than their parents were as teenagers? Were the sources of stress the same for your parent's generation or different? (Idea from De Biasi, 2003)
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Social media is all the buzz on the internet. What can we do with all the information generated by millions of people posting, tweeting, taking pictures, and chatting? How do companies convert it into profit? While you do not have the tools to analyze data from millions of social media posts by yourself, you will be able to analyze a scaled-down version. Follow the instructions in this project to try your hand at extracting data from a couple of social media sites and use it to create…
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How well do adults understand basic science concepts? This project is a good opportunity for you to test your own scientific understanding as you create a short test to assess knowledge of basic science concepts. Your test will have to brief (probably 10-15 questions, maximum) or you'll have a hard time getting a sufficient number of complete responses. With so few questions, you'll have to think carefully about exactly what comprises "basic science knowledge," and exactly how to word your…
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Have you ever noticed that on a hot day, it's more comfortable to wear a light-colored shirt than a dark one? Or that it's cooler in a park than walking down a street? This happens because different surfaces absorb and reflect heat in different ways. Urban heat islands are parts of cities where man-made surfaces like pavement and buildings replace natural surfaces like grass and trees. In this project, you will use temperature and satellite data to see if certain areas in a city have higher…
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Many websites ask you to answer "security questions," like "What is your mother's maiden name?," to recover your account if you ever forget your password or login ID. However, sometimes the answers to those questions are easy to find online. Does this pose a risk to the security of important accounts like email and online banking? Are people even aware that this information about them is available online? In this project, you will investigate how secure people think security questions are, and…
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Mysteries and detective stories have been popular since the time of Sherlock Holmes. The solutions to these fictional cases often involve untangling seemingly contradictory evidence from eyewitnesses. This project studies one procedure used in the real-world process of eyewitness identification of criminal suspects: the lineup. How accurate are eyewitness identifications using various lineup methods?
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Can an authority figure make someone question their own memory? How reliable is eyewitness information? This project looks into these questions. You'll need a poster-sized image that includes many faces, and a volunteers to act as "eyewitnesses." The volunteers are tested individually. The instructions are that they have one minute to examine the poster, and then a fixed amount of time (e.g., 5 minutes) to write down brief, accurate descriptions of all the faces they can remember. They'll…
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How can you motivate students and teachers to make positive changes in their school? Why not try using what is in everyone's pocket—a smartphone! With this project you'll try your hand at harnessing the power of crowdsourcing and mobile technology by creating an app that motivates users to change their school for the better. Do not worry about the app creation, the MIT App Inventor tool makes that part easy; the instructions provided here will lead you through it step-by-step. Will…
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This project challenges you to think like a politician (and a scientist!), and try to ascertain what factors are most important as individuals make their decision on how to vote. For example, is it what is being said, or who is saying it?
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