Unusual Ideas for Science Fair Projects
1. Atmospheric SPF
2. Why Are Yawns Contagious?
3. Positive Psychology
4. Sound Levels of iPods and MP3 Players, and Hearing Damage
5. Effectiveness of Noise Masking for Improving Concentration and Reducing Distraction6. Political Science / Mass Psychology
7. Politically Incorrect Science Fair Projects
8. Miscellaneous Half-Baked Ideas
- Alternative Energy
- Global Warming
- Biomimicry — Innovation Inspired by Nature
- The Evolution of Cooperation
- Humor Genome Project
- The Genetics of Plant Morphology
- Wrinkles
- Flatulence
- Venus Flytraps
- The Physics of Bird Song
- Mosquito Direction Finder
- The Feynman Reverse Sprinkler Problem
- Obesity and High-Fructose Corn Syrup
- The Popularity of Science among School Children
Steps to doing a science fair project
- Start with a question, something you're genuinely curious about
- Do lots of research to get more ideas
- Develop a hypothesis
- Design an experiment
- Keep good records
- Analyze the results
- Develop a conclusion
- Atmospheric SPF
People are less likely to get sunburn and skin damage when the sun is low on the horizon. Can the atmospheric protection be quantified in terms of SPF (Sun Protection Factor) as if it were a sunscreen? Can you graph the "atmospheric SPF" for different times of day, different days of the year, different latitudes, and/or different angles of incidence? For example, something like this:
but with more accurate numbers, for a specific date and place?
The "shadow rule" says to avoid the sun when your shadow is shorter than you are; limit exposure to a half hour when it's the same length; limit exposure to one hour when your shadow is longer. How much ultraviolet radiation would you receive at various times of day if you follow the shadow rule?
Is there a way to update the shadow rule to make it more accurate? For example, is the intensity of UV radiation inversely proportional to the ratio of the length of your shadow to your height, or is this only true at certain latitudes? (For example, how large could that inverse ratio be if you were at the equator at noon?)
Can you minimize sun damage by taking a break in the middle of your sun exposure? In other words, is it better to get 30 minutes of sun with an hour break in between, or an hour of sun all at once? A famous doctor wrote in his blog that it doesn't matter; all that matters is the cumulative exposure during one day. Does this sound like the kind of thing experts sometimes make up because it sounds right and seems to make sense? Can you think of a nondestructive way to test this (without giving someone a sunburn)?
One sometimes reads that 20 minutes of sun a day gives you all the Vitamin D you need. But would you get much as much Vitamin D from the sun at 5 PM as you would at noon? Is there a way to measure one's solar Vitamin D intake? Is there a way to optimize your sun exposure, to get the Vitamin D you need while minimizing the possibility of sun damage?
- Why Are Yawns Contagious?
See the short story, Dr. Yawn, for ideas.
- Positive Psychology
Some of the research in the field of positive psychology is more rigorous than others. Can you come up with an interesting experiment in this area? For example, have a number of people try one of the exercises over a period of time, and see whether this results in significant improvements. You may want to first read some of the existing research and see if you can improve on it.
- Sound Levels of iPods and MP3 Players, and Hearing Damage
There seems to be a correlation between the prevalence of iPods and MP3 players and hearing damage. This may be causing a "silent epidemic" of hearing loss among young people. A recent study (see http://www.hearing.com.au/upload/Is%20Australia%20Listening.pdf), reported that 60% of Australians, especially at the younger ages, had reported "ringing of the ears," or tinnitus, an early warning sign of irreversible hearing damage. A study in the Netherlands (http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/technology/story.html?id=5dda50e5-39b3-4d9f-be29-616636befbc3) showed that teens generally played their iPods at maximum volume, despite being aware that this could harm their hearing.
Headphone listeners in particular are more susceptible to hearing damage (such as hearing loss and tinnitus, or ringing of the ears), for a number of reasons:
- Headphones often have poor bass response, so users tend to turn up the volume to compensate
- With headphones, users don't feel the loud, thumping bass which tells the body that the music is really loud
- There is less air absorption at the damaging high frequencies, because the sound doesn't have to travel across the room
- The ears adapt to loud sounds faster over headphones, so users are tempted to keep turning up the volume
Hearing damage can be thought of as a type of repetitive stress disorder, and as with carpal tunnel syndrome, most people don't think about it until the damage is already done.
Can you measure the sound pressure level at which your fellow students commonly listen to music through headphones or ear buds? It is more difficult to measure the actual sound levels through ear buds, due to the small openings? Have the students experienced ringing of the ears? Can you measure their hearing? If so, can you detect preliminary signs of hearing loss? Is there a correlation between how long people listen and at what levels, and their hearing acuity?
Please be careful to make all experiments non-destructive.
- Effectiveness of Noise Masking for Improving Concentration and Reducing Distraction
Some people are more sensitive to noise than others. In particular, some people find it very difficult to concentrate when others are talking or playing music. Can you measure individual differences in this area?
While some people find it useful to play music to mask out unwanted conversations, others find music can be distracting as well, especially if it includes lyrics. Can you do controlled experiments to determine whether a conversation masking program, such as ChatterBlocker, would be helpful to reduce distraction and increase concentration? Is it more helpful than listening to music? Can useful results be achieved even at relatively low volume levels (and using speakers instead of headphones)? Is the effectiveness of the masking increased by the fact that the masking sounds are in stereo? What would be the best way to measure concentration and/or distraction?
Further information is available in the article "Coping with Speech Noise in the Modern Workplace." (Full disclosure: I'm the developer of the ChatterBlocker program.)
- Political Science / Mass Psychology
Why are people so willing to obey authority figures who tell them to do things that conflict with their conscience? How could something like Abu Ghraib happen, and why are people so eager to forget about it afterwards? See the Stanford Prison Experiment, the Milgram Experiment, etc.
In what ways have the ideas of Orwell's 1984 (newspeak, doublethink, "Big Brother," thoughtcrime, the Ministry of Truth, the perpetual war, the Thought Police, the memory hole, etc.) come true? What roles have the government, the news media and others played in this?
Follow your curiosity. Select one topic that seems intriguing and see if you can develop a scientifically testable hypothesis.
If you do something along these lines, expect it to go down on your permanent record...
- Politically Incorrect Science Fair Projects
- Attempt to scientifically prove and/or disprove the existence of God and/or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
- Do anything involving sperm, urine, mucus, menstrual blood, teen pregnancy, etc.
- Study the hypothesis that students in wealthy school districts get a far better education than students in poor districts. If this turns out to be true, why? What are the correlations between household income, school spending, class size, and test scores from one district to the next? To what extent is John Edwards's "Two Americas" idea being played out in our classrooms? To what extent do schools in poor districts serve as prison prep schools? (See Letter to the Superintendent of Schools.)
- How has the "No Child Left Behind" act helped or hurt education in the U.S.? What impact has it had on student interest and curiosity? (See No Child Left Unbored.)
- What is that stuff they serve in the cafeteria, and is it remotely healthy?
- When a round or cylindrical object is dropped into a porcelain bowl full of water, why does the water often splash back to the exact spot from which the object was released? Will floating a square of tissue paper on the surface of the water help prevent this, and if so, why?
- Miscellaneous Half-Baked Ideas
- Alternative Energy
This may be the field of the future for engineering, etc., so the sooner you start developing expertise in it, the better. For example, do an experiment compare the relative efficiency of two different ways of harvesting solar energy.
- Global Warming
What plants are most efficient at removing CO2 from the atmosphere? How could you measure this effect? What strategy would be most cost-effective — planting trees, seeding the ocean with iron to promote plankton growth, etc.? What are some possible unintended consequences of trying to "geo-engineer" the planet to produce large-scale modifications of the environment?
- Biomimicry — Innovation Inspired by Nature
See the video on 12 Sustainable Design Ideas from Nature, http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/janine_benyus_shares_nature_s_designs.html, view the introductory material at http://biomimicryinstitute.org/about-us/what-is-biomimicry.html, and search the Biomimicry database, http://database.portal.modwest.com/start.php.
Think of a problem that needs solving, and then research whether nature has already found a solution. Alternatively, start with a plant or animal that does something interesting or useful and figure out how it does that.
How do various plants and animals "make a living"? Is there anything we can learn from their methods of adaptation?
- The Evolution of Cooperation
Learn about various species that survive by cooperating with each other. Read the book "The Evolution of Cooperation" and see the lab experiment at http://taumoda.com/web/PD/setup.html.
Can you design a "Prisoner's Dilemma" computer tournament to see which cooperation/competition strategies are most successful? Can you find other examples of this phenomenon in nature?
- Humor Genome Project
I have no idea what to do with this.
- The Genetics of Plant Morphology
Fractals can be used to program shapes resembling those of leaves (such as ferns) using a very small amount of data. It seems possible that plant DNA may encode these shapes in a very mathematical way.
On the other hand, we can't always count on nature to design things the way people would. (For example, the human hearing mechanism is one of the most bizarre things in the world, nothing like what a human engineer would come up with.)
Can you come up with a hypothesis for how leaf shapes might be encoded in plant DNA, and then search DNA databases for corroborating evidence? (Probably not, because this is a very advanced, grad student type project.)
- Wrinkles
Can you tell whether middle-aged or older people are smokers or not by observing how wrinkled their faces are? Could insurance companies use this as a type of facial profiling?
- Flatulence
If pets farted as much as people do, people wouldn't have pets. Why do people fart so much, and is there anything we can learn from studying animals that might help reduce our flatulence? For example, why do some animals have less flatulence than others?
How could you collect a person's farts underwater (for example, in a bathtub) without the farts being contaminated by room air, and what kinds of experiments could you do with the collected farts? How much energy is produced, per liter, by pyroflatulation? How could you safely measure the energy production?
If farts were converted to energy and used to power a vehicle, how many miles (inches?) per fart could you get? How much flatulence do cows produce, and could this be a useful source of energy?
Would it be possible to invent a Fart Detector or Stinkometer that would indicate whether a bathroom was safe for the next person?
If you fart outside in very cold weather, is it possible to see your farts the way you can see someone's breath? Why or why not? What sorts of technologies could be used to visualize a person's farts, and why would you want to do this?
- Venus Flytraps
Is it true that Venus flytraps (a type of carnivorous plant) are only found within a small radius around some meteor craters near Wilmington, NC? What is the likelihood that these plants may have an extraterrestrial origin? More broadly, is there any way to estimate the probability that life on this planet may have been seeded from outer space?
- The Physics of Bird Song
Read the essays at http://www.museumofconceptualart.com/nature/birdsounds/birds.html and see if they give you any ideas for projects.
- Mosquito Direction Finder
Sometimes it can be hard to locate a mosquito inside a room (for swatting purposes), because high-pitched, narrow-bandwidth sounds are difficult to localize. Is it possible to create a device or computer program for mosquito localization, possibly using a small number of microphones? Could acoustic reflections off of walls and ceilings make the sound seem to come from a different direction? Is it likely that an electronic device could improve upon the localization ability of human ears? Can measurement of delays of the Doppler shift caused by acceleration of the mosquito's motion help distinguish between the direct path and wall reflections? (This is a difficult project.)
- The Feynman Reverse Sprinkler Problem
What happens if a lawn sprinkler is submerged and water is sucked out of it instead of being forced into it — will it spin forwards, backwards, or not at all? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman_sprinkler.
- Obesity and High-Fructose Corn Syrup
Over the past 20 years, there has been a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States, especially in the southern states, as seen in this animated map. What is the main cause of this increase?
The past 20 or 30 years has also seen a large increase in the U.S. consumption of sugar and sweeteners, and an even larger increase in the use of high-fructose corn syrup, particularly in soft drinks. There is a correlation between the increase in the use of high-fructose corn syrup and the increase in obesity, but are these two factors causally linked? In particular, has soft drink consumption caused this increase in obesity? Is high-fructose corn syrup more likely to cause weight gain than an equivalent amount of sugar? I'm not sure what kind of experiment could you do to confirm a causal relationship — that's why this is a half-baked idea.
- The Popularity of Science among School Children
Has the popularity of science, science fairs, and math- and science-related professions decreased in the United States over the past 20 or 30 years? I recently heard a radio program in which someone had interviewed students in Bangalore, India about what they wanted to do when they grow up; the answers were things like engineer, engineer, neurosurgeon, airplane pilot, etc. Meanwhile, a certain percentage of the student population in the U.S. aspires simply to be famous: basketball player, rock star, etc.
Is this perception real? If so, what has caused this loss of interest in science? If students are turning away from professions such as engineering, what does that imply for the future of the country? How many lawyers, bankers, and reality TV stars does one country really need?
What professions, if any, do students aspire to, and why? What kind of problems need solving in this country, and what would inspire students to study those problems and explore possible solutions?
Physics Question of the Week from the University of Maryland, http://www.physics.umd.edu/lecdem/outreach/QOTW/qotwsubj.htm.
Experiments of the Month, http://www.millersville.edu/~physics/exp.of.the.month/past.html.
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