Science- Student Research Project!?!? What should i experiment??? (1 Viewer)

[Elemie]

Science! As soon as you go back they give you a major assignment!! I can't think of anything to experiment!! Any ideas? What did you do? We can't do any study involving explosions or poisoness or flammable substances, nothing involving cruelty to animals, experiments involving blood products, surveys or collections that involve the removal of collected flora or fauna, bacterial growth, the use of illegal materials or activities... so they have pretty much stumped me Can you pls help me? Thanks.

 

[*wbg*]

are they ur school rules.. or the bos rules?
we got told that we had a research project but no details.. i was planning to test the effectiveness of different household cleaners, medical sterilisers (like alochol, benadine, idonine) , heat and uv rays on the mortality of bacteria..but if we're not allowed to use bacteria by the bos... dang i wish my teacher would give me more info!

tho, for ur idea, how about seeing how yeast reacts with sugar substitutes (many have similar structures to glucose).. sorry thats all i can think of atm ill get back to you if i think of anything better .. :S

 

[Elemie]

are they ur school rules.. or the bos rules?

I'm not sure... but we were told that our projects wouldn't be accepted if it had any of the above...

i was planning to test the effectiveness of different household cleaners, medical sterilisers (like alochol, benadine, idonine)

that might be alright, cos we were told to avoid detergents and washing powders- mmm... stick with the medical sterilisers.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

I've got a good test for you, test the placebo affect. Give everyone a sugar pill and say it's a natural sleeping pill that will make them sleep better that you want to test the effects of. Tell them to take 2 at night before they go to bed.

Now the next day, talk to them again and ask them if it had made them sleep better, or if there were any side affects you had noticed.

----------------------------------------------------------------

If your teacher will not let you do that one, then test the claims of astrologers..

To start off you will need some horoscopes;
For example, I just went to Yahoo! Astrology ( http://astrology.yahoo.com/astrology/ ) and got these:

Aries: It's a day for quick action. Opportunities will knock, but they won't stick around.
Leo: Today you'll meet someone who changes your opinion -- and you'll be happy about it.
Sagitarius: Doing things just for pleasure once in a while is a good idea. Explore it today.
Taurus: The shopping siren may be calling, but don't rush out to buy anything just yet.

Anyway you get the idea...

Now you present all of these to people (put a 1,2,3,4 on them for your own reference later on) and ask them to give it a rank from 1-10 about how accurate it was at the end of the day, and to state their star sign (a good idea would be to use the more extended horoscopes, as they have a greater chance of getting a hit).

 

[Elemie]

Wow! that's a good one!! the teacher has to agree though.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

The horoscope one is much easier to do. I imagine your teacher will have less of a problem about you doing that one (as it doesn't involve deception or the suggestion of drugs) - He could also perhaps help you work out the experiment a little bit better than what I gave you

 

[kami]

You could test the pH of some household products, and then do some secondary research explaining why they are at that level of pH. Or you could test some natural things like beetroot or onion to see if they are useful as indicators.

 

[Dreamerish*~]

What I did was buying $20 worth of soap - as many brands and types as I could. With a ballpoint pen, I drew marks across fabric and also on my hands. I tested the soaps to find out what brand works the best with fabric and what brad works the best with skin. Turns out Home Brand was quite good, and the bar of soap from the health shop that cost me $5 did nothing other than make me smell like artificial lavendar flavouring.

 

[Wooz]

You could test the pH of some household products, and then do some secondary research explaining why they are at that level of pH. Or you could test some natural things like beetroot or onion to see if they are useful as indicators.

red cabbage is the best for an idicator, i borrowed a laser speed gun from the cops i did a survery and said over 80% of people speed through the 40km an hour zone my hypothesis turned out to be correct, my assignment was 15 pages i think.

Some girls did an assignment on different brands of paper towl cheap vs expensive and found out which is more absorbent. There was a chocolate one whether people could tell if it was cadbury ot not.

 

[SoulSearcher]

how many marks did you get for that?

I'd be surprised if you didnt get high marks

 

[the.chosen.one]

i left mine VERY late, and didn't put in much effort

the effect of soft drinks on metal.

i got coke and sprite, put in a coupla nails and saw what happnd .

do this if u want, but i don't suggest it unless u plan on puttin in decent effort and making it a good experiment



one i did in yr 8 tho was really good.


the effect of salt water on plants

get some wheat grains (they grow FAST) ...and u figure out the rest.

i got great marks for that but i also put in reasonable effort even though my wriiten part was left till last minute. again.

 

[the.chosen.one]

i left mine VERY late, and didn't put in much effort

the effect of soft drinks on metal.

i got coke and sprite, put in a coupla nails and saw what happnd .

do this if u want, but i don't suggest it unless u plan on puttin in decent effort and making it a good experiment



one i did in yr 8 tho was really good.


the effect of salt water on plants

get some wheat grains (they grow FAST) ...and u figure out the rest.

i got great marks for that but i also put in reasonable effort even though my wriiten part was left till last minute. again.

 

[Elemie]

Thanks for all the ideas! Dunno what I'd do without them. I'll keep this thread open for the rest of this and next week- also for those other Yr 10's needing basic ideas (just no direct copying!!)

 

[Wooz]

how many marks did you get for that?

I'd be surprised if you didnt get high marks

I did 2 projects in yr 9 recieved 100% for both and i did 3 projects in yr10 i got 100% for all 3.

 

[m0ofin]

I did something about the effects that different washing powders have on our waterways using the powder, coins and some containers filled with riverwater. My hypothesis was that those that had more phosphates or other minerals in them were more likely to cause eutrophication.

 

[acullen]

Back when I was in Year 10 (wow, a while ago now) I tested the relation between the relative salinity of adjacent sea water and sand from numerous source along the beach.

To dissolve the sodium chloride from the sand samples, I put equal masses of sand into a beaker each with a controlled volume of distilled water. (Sorry I can't remember any specifics) I then heated the volume of water whilst stirring to dissolve any salt into the distilled water. Then I simply used a filter funnel to seperate the solids from the fluid solution.

I weighed an evapourating basin using a 3-beam balance (probably easier to use digital scales, but I used what was available) and then pour the water sample into it. That was put over a bunsen burner until all liquid content dissolved leaving the solid sodium chloride crystals. This was then weighed once more.

A similar evapouration process was completed for the sea water samples. You simply subtract the weight of the basin from the weight of the newly evapourated sample and divide it by the original sample weight. Multiply this by 100 and you have a percentage. The relative salinity (as a percentage of weight of the original sand/water sample) was graphed. Surprisingly there appeared to be a direct correlation between data sets.

There are 3 very crucial things to do for this experiment:

1. Make sure the beam balance is calibrated (or even better use digital scales)
2. Make sure the water used to dissolve the salt content from the sand is of a quantity large enough so that all salt is dissolved (ie not reach the limit and retain undissolved sodium chloride)
3. Turn down the heat as soon as there is any spattering that appears, you don't want to lose any salt from your sample

In a way I miss high school, but the toys they let us play with are more impressive. They let myself and a few other students from my uni do a research project using a $3,000,000 Linear Accelerator (clinical radiation generator for treating cancer) into radiation dosimetry. Enjoy the research projects now, they could be the beginning of something great in the future.

If for whatever strange reason you want to do this experiment, simply ask for more help if it's needed.

 

[Riviet]

Here's another idea: if you're interested, you could try an experiment involving comparing how plants grow over a period of time by putting them in different environments. Some good places to test include a pitch back room, outdoors in the shade, outdoors in the sun. When performing experiments such as these, make sure you use the same plants, soil and seeds if planting from scratch. Oh and another variable you could fiddle around with is the amount of water you feed to each.

 

[nerdacer]

you could do which preservative keeps a flower fresh the longest?

 

[Official]

lol, post is over 3 years old

 

[Trixstar]

Bronze CREST project ideas (Fact Sheet)

That website has a whole bunch of ideas for science experiments, and there's a quiz you can take to find one that interests you.

Blue CREST project ideas (Fact Sheet)

I think these ones were more challenging, there was a gold one I think also.

Bye everyone:wave: