Question about How Far Can Your Sneeze Go? activity

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Abrar80
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Question about How Far Can Your Sneeze Go? activity

Post by Abrar80 »

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I need help to make this science fair for my son grade 7 also about another experiment on vaccine and herd immunity if they work to stop pandemics ? And about this experiment what’s the procedures? And what’s the variable will be ?

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The activity can be viewed at: How Far Can Your Sneeze Go?
MrsDez
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Re: Question about How Far Can Your Sneeze Go? activity

Post by MrsDez »

Hi,

What question do you want your project to answer? You can see that the steps in using the scientific method starts with a question that you will answer with you science fair project. This is explained here:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... fic-method

For the How Far Can Your Sneeze Go activity, https://www.sciencebuddies.org/stem-act ... xploremore

You can simulate a sneeze by using a spray bottle and observing where the droplets land.
The project also includes :

"For Further Exploration

What happens if you sneeze "harder" by squeezing the bottle's handle faster?
How do your results change if you change the height of the bottle above the ground? Try standing up and holding it at face level.
What happens if you do the experiment in a room with air currents? Try opening some windows or turning on a fan."

This experiment will show how properly washing your hands can help prevent spread the germs (that you may have blocked from your sneeze)
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure

Once you decide on the question that you want the science fair project to answer, we can assist you with coming up with project ideas.

A project on vaccine and herd immunity can also be projects on their own. Here is great information on the background for these topics.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ?s=vaccine

A way to combine these ideas is to think of a question that you are interested in finding an answer for. Here are some questions that you can build a project for. These specific examples would entail three separate projects.

"Can covering your sneeze still spread germs?"
"How do vaccines help prevent the spread of a viral outbreak?"
"Does herd immunity work?"

Can you think of a question that would combine all of the topics you are interested in exploring? Once you decide on the question that you would like to answer, we can better assist and guide you with your science fair project.
ap567
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Joined: Wed Jun 24, 2020 1:27 pm
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Re: Question about How Far Can Your Sneeze Go? activity

Post by ap567 »

Hello!



For the "How Far Can Your Sneeze Go?" Activity, the basic procedure involves covering the floor with newspaper, holding a spray bottle above the newspaper, and repeatedly spraying water. As you spray more water, the newspaper will start to become soaked and turn a dark grey. You should be able to see that the droplets of water actually travel several feet!

To design a more complex procedure, I would recommend covering the bottle's nozzle with different items (that would be the independent variable), such as a tissue or your elbow. The control would be not covering the nozzle. You could then measure how far the water droplets travel for each item, using the measurements as the dependent variable, and then relate your results to the real world!

Another variable you could test is height: try changing the height of the bottle above the ground, and see how that impacts the distance the water droplets travel. Or try squeezing the bottle's handle faster to represent a "harder" sneeze!


You can get some ideas under "For Further Exploration" at this link:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/stem-act ... xploremore
I would also suggest reading the summary under "Digging Deeper" and watching the video titled "MIT: studying the sneeze." They might help you relate the activity to COVID-19 and infectious diseases.



Hope this helps! :)
cnoonan180
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Re: Question about How Far Can Your Sneeze Go? activity

Post by cnoonan180 »

Hello!

Here's a link to a forum where another Science Buddies user had a similar question! The information about designing an experiment to mimic a sneeze using a spray bottle and standing different distances away from a cube of agar (a gelatin-like substance used to grow bacteria and microbes on to later observe the growth and change of) to capture microbes from a stimulated "bacteria-mixture" (containing bacteria extracted from yogurt) to mimic a sneeze. Make sure to be safe with the bacteria you may choose to use, and pick types that are not harmful to humans or pets, or simply just use water and newspaper and measure how wet the newspaper becomes when you spray it to mimic a sneeze!

viewtopic.php?t=21654#p70730

Hope this helps!
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