Projects, Lessons, Activities (Page 180)

How Fast Can You Become a Virtual Rock Star?

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Learning to play an instrument can be a lot of fun, especially when you can pretend to be a rock star as you learn! In this science fair project, you will study how your score in a music video game changes as you play and practice. You'll need a video game where you use a controller shaped like a musical instrument. Two examples include Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but there may be more! In these games, playing requires nothing more than a sense of the music's beat, and ridiculously fast fingers,… Read more

How Fast Can You Get It Done?

STEM Activity

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Do you hate doing the dishes, folding laundry, or cleaning up your room? Do you wish you could figure out a way to get these tasks done faster? Figure out how as you take on the role of a production engineer in this fun activity! Read more

How Fast Can You Shoot a Hockey Puck?

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

You'll need: a puck, a hockey stick, a tape measure, at least one helper with a stopwatch and an empty rink. Have your friend start the watch just as you make contact with the puck, and stop it when the puck hits the boards. Measure the distance and divide by the time to get the speed of the puck. With two helpers and two stop watches, you can time the puck at center ice and at the far end. Are the speeds the same? How about if you don't follow through, but stop your stick as soon as it… Read more

How Gene Mutations Change Your Ability to Taste

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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Explore genetic variation through the world of taste in this problem-solving lesson plan. Working both individually and collaboratively, students figure out what kind of tasters they are, what this means about their own genetics, and how genetic mutations can lead to functional differences. This activity provides a hands-on, personalized opportunity to learn about how genotypes and phenotypes align. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-LS3-1. Develop and use a model to describe why structural changes to genes (mutations) located on chromosomes may affect proteins and may result in harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects to the structure and function of the organism.
MS-LS3-2. Develop and use a model to describe why asexual reproduction results in offspring with identical genetic information and sexual reproduction results in offspring with genetic variation.

How Long Does It Take to Fry a Diode?

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

If you have ever built an electronic circuit with a soldering iron, you know that the component leads get hot. How much of that heat gets into the device you're soldering? This project shows you how you can use a silicon diode as a temperature sensor to find out. Read more

How Many Letters?

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Can you remember all of your ABC's? Computers need to "remember" letters too. Every time we use a computer to write a story, the computer needs to "remember" the letters in the story by saving them to the computer's memory as a file. In this experiment find out how much memory it takes for the computer to "remember" a series of letters. Read more

How Much Mass Is Needed to Make a Body Round?

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Use your Internet sleuthing skills to learn about solar system objects. Create a table of measurements of moons and asteroids in order to determine if there is a size threshold for roundness. A good source of information would be an online guide such as The Nine Planets (Arnett, W.A., 2006). You'll find information about planetary satellites, including dimensions and accompanying pictures. From the pictures, classify the satellites and asteroids according to how round they are. Can you think of… Read more

How Our Immune System and Vaccines Protect Us From Diseases

Lesson Plan Grade: 9th-12th

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What happens in our bodies when we get sick? How do vaccines protect us from certain diseases? These are some questions that students will learn to answer in this lesson plan. Through a series of activities, students will be introduced to our immune system. They will learn how vaccines make use of our adaptive immune response to fight diseases. Read more

How Shoe Tread Affects Traction

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Have you ever noticed that some shoes grip the ground better than others? The pattern and design of a shoe’s tread can affect how slippery it is on different surfaces. You can test shoes with different tread patterns—like flat, ridged, or patterned—to see which design provides the best grip. By dragging a shoe along a surface with a spring scale at a constant velocity, you can measure how much force is needed for each shoe to slide on various surfaces. With this knowledge, you… Read more

How Sour or How Sweet is Your Lemonade?

STEM Activity

Cooking is a fun and rewarding activity, allowing you to be cook and a scientist at the same time, experimenting with endless taste combinations! The five tastes humans can experience are: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. But have you ever experienced some combinations that were delicious and others that were downright yucky? How do cooks come up with delicious recipes, and even more amazingly, how can they replicate the same exact flavors over and over again? Does science have anything to… Read more

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