Environmental Science Science Projects (56 results)
As humans we are part of the environment. With over 7.5 billion of us on Earth, our combined actions also have a big impact on the environment. As long as we are aware of the impact, we can do things as individuals, and working together as groups, to lessen the detrimental impact of billions of people. Explore important topics like air quality, water quality, the effects of climate change, and many others to make informed decisions about caring for our planet.
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If you made a pile of all the electronic devices (cell phones, computers, stereos, televisions, MP3 players, video game systems, remote-control toys, etc.) that your family has gotten rid of since you were a baby, how big would that pile be? Would it be taller than you? Would it fit better in a wheelbarrow or in a pickup truck? And did they just throw it in the trash? In this science project, you'll explore what people in your community do with electronic waste, commonly called e-waste, and…
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Did you know that about 1 in 10 people worldwide do not have access to clean water? Collectively, girls and women worldwide spend an average of 200 million hours every day collecting the water they need from rivers, water holes, or lakes. What if there was a way to capture water from another source—like the air? In areas where there is a lot of fog, a device called a fog catcher makes this possible. Fog catchers use fine meshes to capture and collect water droplets from the foggy air.…
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Here is an interesting project that could be approached from several different scientific angles: Environmental Science, Weather & Atmosphere, Chemistry, or Plant Biology. You can probably think of your own variations to emphasize the scientific area that most interests you.
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Smog days are often posted in your local newspaper. Check how many smog days your city has had in the last year. How does it compare to to other years? You can also take pictures of your city landscape on high and low smog days. How do the pictures compare? How does smog in the atmosphere affect visibility? What is smog made of? You can use tongue depressors smeared with Vaseline to check for smog particles in different areas; just stick in the ground and look at them a few days later. …
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You might know that lead can be toxic, and that you can get lead poisoning from eating or inhaling old paint dust. Lead is called a heavy metal, and there are other sources of heavy metals that can be toxic, too. Silver, copper, mercury, nickel, cadmium, arsenic, and chromium are all heavy metals that can be toxic in certain environments. In this experiment, find out if one common heavy metal, copper, can be toxic to an aquatic environment.
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Wondering what sustainable, high-producing agriculture might look like? This science project explores how analyzing bird's-eye-view pictures of a field can make farmers aware of variations in their fields. Farmers can use this information to optimize their farming practices, or even feed this information to high-tech agricultural equipment so the machines can automatically adjust their actions (like fertilizing or watering) to the needs of a piece of land.
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No one can deny the devastating consequences of an oil spill on the local wildlife. Oil affects all levels of the ecosystem, from plants to fish and birds. What happens to water plants if you add motor oil to their pot? What is the effect of motor oil on the health of a goldfish, or water insects? What happens to the barbs of a bird feather if they are dipped in oil? Can you test different types of environmentally-friendly detergents for cleaning the bird feathers? Can you test different…
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Many people are surprised to learn that the season's we experience—winter, spring, summer and fall—have nothing to do with the distance of Earth from the Sun. In this science fair project, you will investigate how the temperature on Earth actually depends on the tilt of Earth's axis of rotation.
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The sustainability of our planet's resources ultimately depends upon our actions as citizens. How much we drive, what we eat, whether we have pets, and whether we recycle are all individual actions that affect the sustainability of the Earth's resources. Learn how ecological footprinting works and figure out how big your footprint is. How big is your family's footprint? Your school? A local business? Can you propose ways to increase or decrease the size of your ecological footprint? Develop…
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Extinct might be a word you associate with animals that lived long ago, like the dinosaurs, but did you know that over 18,000 species are classified as "threatened" (susceptible to extinction) today? Scientists involved in wildlife conservation have a tough job; they are in charge of determining what needs to be done to prevent a species from becoming extinct. Habitat, food supply, and impacts of local human populations are just a few of the factors these scientists take into account. It is a…
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