Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My 3rd grader is highly into all aspects of wars, weaponry, military history, etc. He is gifted and talented and thinks way beyond his years. He would like to do his science fair project on a military related topic that would fit into this year's theme of "Our Changing Planet." Specifically, he would like to do it on how war or nuclear war changes our planet. We have not been able to locate any resources for this topic, and do not want to do Nuclear Winter. Any suggestions on how we can tie the desired subject and theme together? His project has to be on 1/2 of a poster board with nothing extending more than 2" from the poster board, and nothing exending above or below the poster board. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We want to win this year. Thanks!

Well, one very obvious way in which war affects our planet is that the resources poured into the military are not poured into research on sustainable energy, etc. Of course, this does not really make the best science fair topic (and, in fairness, there definitely have been military advances that have gone on to public consumption, such as velcro).

You could always do a project on Agent Orange or DDT--two chemicals which had very large impacts on our environment and were developed for military use, I believe.

I know there's lots of information out there about land mines and what happens to people when the land around them has been mined but they still have to survive and farm/hunt/gather on the land; you might try looking into that--although I'm not sure how well it fits into the theme.

Another idea is to focus on the refugees of war. These people put additional strain on areas of the planet that can already be quite strained--I'm thinking about the refugee camps in Darfur where women have to walk many miles to get firewood, or the camps in Pakistan where there are shortages of water, etc. I'm not sure how much information there will actually be about their effects on the planet, though.

Here is an interesting article about a small island that held a US military base for many years; the residents are now suing the US because they say the tests there have made them sick: http://www.dmzhawaii.org/?p=5739.

Do any of these ideas strike your son's fancy?

Thanks for your input. We will let you know how it turns out.