Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Okay,
As part of our final grade for the year our science teacher has each student pick a topic to do a rather in-depth project on including a research paper, experiment, etc. The whole thing, of course is centered around the experiment. Now I, being extremely clever as I am, reviewed the list of topics and chose to do my project on the green car, thinking, "This will be interesting!" Not, however thinking how wide a topic that was and how hard it might be to design an experiment around.

So now my dilemma is that I don't really know what to do. The questions that pop into my mind when thinking about the topic involve green cars vs. gasoline powered vehicles, which is better? or do the benefits of alternative energy sources outweigh the negative aspects? (And of course how does it work? but that, too, is a broad topic.) But those sound more like prompts for a research paper, not an actual experiment that can be conducted. So are there any ideas floating around out there about how I might be able to morph those questions into an experiment?

I realize the purpose of this forum isn't to tell me specifically what to do, I'm just hoping for something to spark my imagination and maybe push me in the right direction.

Thank you in advance!

Hi Larien,

As you said, there are several aspects of "green cars" that could be interesting. I would pick one aspect to concentrate.
Maybe renewable energy sources - ways to make energy that do not require using oil. Think about things like biogas and the ethanol and corn oil supplemented gasolines.
Another apsect you might consider is emissions and cleaner fuels. One of the reasons that electric cars are favored.

Depending on your interests you could do experiments that are design based or more chemistry based.

I remember my Dad working on a way to use combustion of a peanut to provide energy to light a small bulb. It might be possible to design something to run a toy car.

Another idea would be to burn very small amounts of fuels (under safe fire hazard and controlled ventilation conditions) to measure and compare the amount of emissions. You would want to talk to a chemistry teacher about what fuels might be safely testable.

hopefully this will help get the ball rolling. pst back with some of your ideas,
best of luck
-Caroline

Thanks, Caroline.

I've been digging around some more and had a few more ideas come up. Designing something to run a toy car, that would be a good one if I could figure out how to do it. Other ideas have been to examine which make of car is most efficient/enviromentally friendly etc. I think I might do that, as that would be easier with the resources I have to research, possibly visit dealers in the area.

But thank you very much for your input. I really appreciate it!

Hi Larien,

Happy to help.

I saw this kit for making alternative energy cars but looks as though it would be expensive. And unless you were to try some modifications is probably not inventive enough for a science fair.
http://www.super-science-fair-projects. ... jects.html

You mentioned getting data about different makes of cars and their efficiency of resources. That sounds very possible. A lot of that information is available of the manufacturers websites - how many miles per gallon a car goes on the highway or in the city. Different sized cars vary dramatically. Also having a manual transmission increases gas efficiency. There are many ways you could graph the data and do analysis about how much passenger room or trunk space or price vs how efficient. That way you could assess what is the "best" family car.

good luck!
caroline

Thanks, I checked out the link and it does seem a bit out of my means at the moment. But its a great idea. And I'll certainly keep in mind what you've said as I'm researching.