Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Any ideas for a science fair project for my kindergartener? She can't yet read or write on her own which is making my search very difficult. I'd like her to conduct an experiment on her own, for the most part. She has a big interest in animals (we have 2 dogs). Other than a bread/mold and dust/air experiments, which I don't think would be extremely interesting to her, can you make any suggestions? Thanks for your help!!!

Hi Colleen,

You are right to pick a project on a topic that you daughter would be interested in. Here's an idea for a project that might work. If your dogs are different sizes, why don't you have your daughter measure the length of their legs? You could do this part, but show her how to use a ruler so she will get the idea of take a measurement. Then have both dogs run a race (will the dogs run after a ball?) and record the time it takes. You could get an inexpensive stopwatch and let your daughter use it; most kids love stopwatches. She could find out if longer legs help the bigger dog run faster. If she shows enough patience, you could compare results with 2-3 races.

You want to encourage your daughter to have fun with the science fair project.

If this experiment won't work, perhaps this idea will help you think of something of another simple experiment. If you need more ideas, let me know what else your daughter is interested in, and I'll try to think of a different experiment.

Donna Hardy

How about a project about teeth - why animals have different types of teeth and what they different shaped teeth do. She could take photos of the dogs teeth, her own teeth, find some pictures in an encyclopedia/book/website for teeth from cows or horses, cats etc

Or something about families of animals and classification ie. How to sort animals by how they look or what they eat or do. You could build a "Who am I game" - a series of questions that clasify an animal. You have a set of animal pictures and you ask the person playing to think of one of them. Then they answer the questions and you can tell them who they are. E.g. Do you have soft fur? Y Do you have pointed teeth? Y Do you give birth to live young ? Y Do you have 3 eyelids? Y, Are you a cat? or Do you have fur? N Do you have pointed teeth? N Do you have more than one stomach? Y Do you produce large quanities of milk? Y Are you a cow?

Thats great she is interested at such a young age!
best of luck,
Caroline