Ideas on a Twin Science Fair project?

[Alex10]

I have a Science Fair coming up. I have 1 year old identical twin sisters. Do you have any ideas of a project I could do about twins?

[scibudadmin]

Thank you for posting your question on the forums. At this time we do not have any projects directly related to twins. We do have a few projects on DNA and it could be interesting to study their finger print patterns compared to you and the rest of your family. There is a lot of information available about twins and the study of faternal vs. identical twins. Since you know they are identical perhaps you could come up with a project related to their DNA formation, etc.

Here is a link for information about twins:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_twin

Hopefully the link will provide information or ideas that inspire a project idea for you to work on.

Regards,
Melissa G.
Science Buddies Staff

[adance]

Hi Alex,

If you want to use your sisters for your project, you might ask questions about how they are different or the same. Stuff like, do they both cry the same amount?, do they like/dislike the same foods?...and so on. Basically you'd be testing to see what characteristics might be in their genes.

You could do a bigger experiment if you worked with several pairs of twins. Kind of the classic twin experiment is to compare identical twins to nonidentical twins. It's a "nature vs nurture"--presumably within a pair of twins they have more or less the same upbringing, so differences with nonidentical twins should be genetic.

I would do some background research and find a topic you're interested in, then figure out a way to apply it to twins.

The Minnesota Twin Family Study has done tons of research on twins; here's a brochure: http://www.psych.umn.edu/psylabs/mtfs/special.htm
They also look at twins separated at birth, which might be a little hard for you to find.

This is an interesting topic in which you can ask lots of questions. Good luck.