How to Create the Perfect Science Project

If you're a first grader and you have to create a science project for the school science fair during the last week of school, the first thing you do is enlist the help of your dad. He will go online to find just the perfect project for a 1st grade girl to do. Then you nag your dad for 2 weeks and ask him every time you see him when he is going to help you with your science project. Finally, you nag enough, and the deadline gets close enough that he decides to help you.

Everyone wants to know how to make a penny shiny again, don't they? Seems like a winner of a project. So, if you mix vinegar and salt and put the pennies in it - will the pennies be shinier if you rinse them or don't rinse them? Lacey & Brad set out to discover the answer.



But there was one big problem - the pennies looked the same regardless of whether or not they were rinsed. Now you have to enlist the help of your mom to find out why this happened. After a little bit of online research, your mom tells you & your dad that you have to do the project again - this time with copper pennies - the kind of pennies that were made before 1982. If they were made after 1982, they are only 5% copper and the project doesn't work.

So then you start over . . .

You use the pennies that your dad got from his friend at the office who has a rather abundant penny collection (to make sure you use pennies that were made before 1982) and you mix the pennies in the solution . . .


You rinse half of the pennies . . .


You put all the pennies out to dry . . .


You compare the pennies - your hypothesis was right!
The rinsed pennies are shinier . . .


And finally - you get your dad and mom to help you put all your findings on a display board to show everyone at the school science fair your amazing results . . .


If you're a fifth grader and you have to have a science project for the school science fair during the last week of school, the first thing you do is decide on a project in class, do some research in class, then get your mom to help you conduct the experiment. If you're a fifth grade girl, the perfect science project has to do with cookies and baking. You want to know if the type of cookie sheet you use when baking causes uneven baking.

So you gather different types of baking sheets then you make some cookie dough with your mom and start making cookies . . .


You make sure that each batch is baked at the same temperature and for the same amount of time. You wonder how the cookies that you make on your grandma's oldest, thinnest cookie sheet will turn out . . .


Not so good . . . Looks pretty uneven to me!


The cookies on the insulated cookie sheet your mom uses all the time seem to turn out pretty good. It would appear that the type of cookie sheet used definitely plays a part in even baking.


You taste a cookie from each batch - in the name of science, of course!

Then you start working on your science board with minimal help from your mom. You do an amazing job and take your work to share with everyone at the science fair . . .