Seventh Grade Projects, Lessons, Activities (Page 105)

Testing Behavioral Incentives

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

What motivates you to clean your room/mow the lawn/wash the dishes (substitute your own responsibility at home)? What motivates you to do something you really like to do? Or think about this: you'd like to get your younger brother or sister to do you a favor. What strategy works best? Here is a project designed to test which incentive strategy works best for encouraging small children to complete a task. Read more

The Effect of Roasting on Color, Flavor, and Texture of Peanut Butter

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Peanut butter is a popular ingredient in sandwiches, cookies, and many other common foods. In this cooking and food science fair project, you will roast peanuts in the oven at 350 degrees for 20, 30, and 40 minutes to produce variable levels of color and flavor. Roasting not only adds complex flavors to the peanuts, but it also destroys enzymes that produce off-flavors. Each lot of roasted peanuts will be used to make a batch of peanut butter. You will evaluate each batch of peanut butter for… Read more

The Freezer: It Keeps Your Carrots Awake at Night!

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Brrrr, freezing cold! It's the worst nightmare of any fresh fruit or vegetable! If the produce in your kitchen had legs, they would run in a panic every time the freezer door opens. Why? Well, freezing temperatures are not kind to fresh produce. Freezing kills the plant tissues and alters them on both a chemical and physical level. Chemically, the enzymes in the produce become more concentrated and do not work normally, so that discoloration, off-flavors, vitamin breakdown, and toughness may… Read more

The Great Gravity Escape

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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Students use water balloons and a length of string to understand how the force of gravity between two objects and the velocity of a spacecraft can balance to form an orbit. They see that when the velocity becomes too great for gravity to hold the spacecraft in orbit, the object escapes the orbit and travels further away from the planet.Engineering Connection Engineers and scientists make amazingly precise calculations so that a spacecraft's journey is timed exactly to reach… Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-ESS1-2. Develop and use a model to describe the role of gravity in the motions within galaxies and the solar system.

The Physics of Follow-Through

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

This project can apply to soccer, hockey, baseball and many other sports. What is the effect of stopping the kick/shot/swing at the moment of impact vs. following through? Think of a way to measure the outcome in each case, and explain your results. (idea from Gardner, 2000, 83-85; for more information with regard to specific sports, see: Barr, 1990, 12-14; Gay, 2004, 142-144; Adair, 2002, 30.) Read more

The True Cost of a Bike Rack: Aerodynamics and Fuel Economy

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Race car drivers need every advantage they can get to give them the competitive edge in a race. In addition to human factors, like driving skill and reaction time, their cars must overcome physical forces, like air resistance, to maintain their high speeds. While this science project will not have you driving around a race track at 200 miles per hour, you will get to test how increased air resistance affects a real car's fuel economy. You will do this by measuring and comparing the gas mileage… Read more

The Turn of the Screw

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

How much force is required to advance a lag bolt (large wood screw with a hex-shaped head) into a piece of wood? You can measure the force by using a spring scale attached to the handle of ratchet. Pull on the spring scale until the bolt starts to turn, and note the required force from the spring scale. There are many potential experiments you could try. Think about answering the following questions: How does the force change as the bolt advances deeper into the wood? Why? How does the… Read more

Throwing You Some Curves: Is Red or Blue Longer?

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

This a straightforward, but interesting, project in geometry. It is a good first proof to try on your own. You should be able to figure it out by yourself, and you'll gain insight into a basic property of circles. Figure 1 below shows a semicircle (AE, in red) with a series of smaller semicircles (AB, BC, CD, DE, in blue) constructed inside it. As you can see, the sum of the diameters of the four smaller semicircles is equal to the diameter of the large semicircle. The area of the larger… Read more

Tightening the Turns in Speed Skating: Lessons in Centripetal Force & Balance

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Enjoy the thrill and pace of speed skating, do you? Well, this project's for you. Fast turns around the track become your laboratory tests in these experiments whether you skate on ice, wood, or pavement. The goal is to determine which type of turns are best in a race-tight, medium, or wide-and then to figure out why. You'll analyze the speed and stability of your turns and compare your results with those of a few fellow skaters. This is a friendly competition where the prize is learning… Read more

Tracking a Virus

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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Students simulate the spread of a virus such as HIV through a population by "sharing" (but not drinking) the water in a plastic cup with several classmates. Although invisible, the water in a few of the cups has already be tainted with the "virus" (sodium carbonate). After all the students have shared their liquids, the contents of the cups are tested for the virus with phenolphthalein, a chemical that causes a striking color change in the presence of sodium carbonate.… Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-LS1-3. Use argument supported by evidence for how the body is a system of interacting subsystems composed of groups of cells.

Seventh Grade Projects, Lessons, Activities (1,071 results)

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