Science Projects | Science Buddies Blog (Page 34)

Mark DNA Day with a Field Trip, a Genome Refresher, or a Spool-Your-Own DNA Activity

April 23, 2014 8:29 AM

Whether you explore strawberries, onions, the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex, or the ways in which certain physical traits are evident in your family, make time to talk about and experiment with DNA-related science. Students of all ages should know their A's, T's, G's, and C's. With a fun science kit from Bio-Rad Laboratories, they might even wear their own DNA around their neck! The human genome contains more than 3 billion DNA base pairs. If you typed 360 letters a minute for eight hours a day,… Read more

Spring Science: Calling All Animal Lovers

April 21, 2014 8:00 AM

Bunnies and chicks remind us that spring is here! No matter what sort of animals you have in your household, Science Buddies has a menagerie of Project Ideas for you to try. By Kim Mullin Learning from Your Pet Your pet may be a big part of your family, and observing and caring for your pet can be a part of your science learning, too! How do you train pets? How do you feed them to ensure their nutrition? How does the time of the day impact their behavior or sleep patterns? There… Read more

Family Fun with Physics: Launching Plastic Eggs with the Ping Pong Catapult

April 18, 2014 8:00 AM

The ping pong catapult is a great device for independent student science projects, but this is a tool you can use again and again—even as the basis for a fun afternoon or weekend family science activity. We put the rubber band catapult to use with a bag of plastic eggs for some high-flying family physics fun! The Ping Pong Catapult has been used as the basis of a number of innovative physics, math, and sports science projects at Science Buddies.… Read more

Strength of an Egg: Weekly Science Project Idea and Home Science Activity Spotlight

April 17, 2014 9:00 AM

In this week's spotlight: a materials science family experiment and science fair project that asks you to rethink what you know about eggs. Are they fragile? Or are they strong? If you've ever accidentally stuck your finger through one in the kitchen, you may think you know the answer! But the shape of an egg can support a surprising amount of mass. It is a shape, in fact, that can be found in architecture. How much mass can eggshells hold? Put it to the test with a… Read more

Family Egg Science

April 14, 2014 9:00 AM

Egg science comes over-easy this time of year. Whether you are boiling eggs, dyeing eggs, or both, there are easy questions you can ask with your kids to turn the activity into a hands-on science experiment that everyone will enjoy. In the past few years, the process of preparing colorful, hard-boiled eggs has taken on new and very scientific significance for me as a parent. In turning the seemingly simple act of egg dyeing into a hands-on… Read more

Floating Eggs: Weekly Science Project Idea and Home Science Activity Spotlight

April 10, 2014 9:35 AM

In this week's spotlight: an ocean sciences family experiment and science fair project. Some things float in water and some do not. Knowing the density of the object and the density of the water helps explain what is going on, and you can observe and talk about the buoyancy of an object. But adding salt can change what happens. Why? In this hands-on science experiment, you set up a series of dilutions to see at what point an egg goes from sinking to floating in salt water. How Salty… Read more

Life Sciences and Big Data: What's the Big Deal?

April 9, 2014 8:00 AM

There was no singular moment of Big Data Bang, but we are living in and heading towards a time of seemingly endless and exponential data explosion—and the race to create solutions and strategies to help tame, store, organize, and make sense of big data is on. But even before there was a moniker, there were large data sets being created and used in fields like the life sciences. Today, those data sets continue to grow and evolve. Working with publicly-available big data sets offers… Read more

Join Science Buddies at USASEF for Toothbrush Robot Racing and Catapult Launching!

April 7, 2014 6:00 AM

Take a sneak peak at an exciting pair of hands-on science and engineering activities that Science Buddies has planned for USASEF visitors and get inspired to make your own robots this week in celebration of National Robotics Week—or experiment with your own catapult project! From National Robotics Week to This Month's USASEF Expo (2014)! This week is National Robotics Week, a week dedicated to showcasing robotics engineering and… Read more

Soft Robots: Alternative Robot Design

April 4, 2014 11:00 AM

Robotics engineers are experimenting with soft robots and robots modeled after biological organisms. With a squishy project at Science Buddies, students can get in on the action and test their own soft, air-powered, robot. A recent story in MIT News shows off a cool robotic fish and highlights the softer side of robotics. This new wave of robotics research explores the benefits and possibilities of robots that sport softer, less angular exteriors, designs often inspired by biological systems… Read more

Yeasty Science: Weekly Science Project Idea and Home Science Activity Spotlight

April 3, 2014 10:00 AM

In this week's spotlight: a microbiology-themed family science experiment and science fair project. What conditions cause yeasts to be most active during fermentation? You and your students can find out by growing yeasts in different conditions and then using balloons to trap the gas released by the yeasts during fermentation so that you can measure it. Yeasty Beasties (full Science Buddies Project Idea) Single-Celled Science: Yeasty Beasties (science activity at Scientific… Read more

Science Buddies Blog (660 results)

Explore Our Science Videos