Simple to Do Science Projects

Science is easier and more fun to learn when you see it happen right before your eyes. With some simple projects and experiments that you can conduct at home or at school, you can learn scientific principles and have some fun at the same time. However, make sure you have adult supervision.

The Floating Egg

This project demonstrates that objects floats more easily in denser liquids. To perform the experiment you will need an egg, salt, a tall glass and some water. Fill the glass halfway with water and then add about 6 tablespoons of salt. Stir it well. Gently add more water without disturbing the salty water mix until the glass is nearly full. Carefully lower the egg into the water. It will drop through the plain water until it reaches the salt water where it will float in the middle of the glass.

Diet Coke/Mentos Eruption

This experiment must be conducted outside. You'll need a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke, a pack of Mentos candy and funnel or a tube. Open the bottle and insert the funnel. Add about half a pack of Mentos --- do this quickly and run away. A geyser of soda should erupt straight into the air. The carbon dioxide in the soda looks to escape from the bottle in the form of bubbles. Mentos candies have dimples on them (like a golf ball) and the dimples increase the surface area on which the bubbles can form. The more surface area, the more bubbles that form. They are then ejected dramatically from the bottle.

Egg in a Bottle

For this project you will need a hard-boiled egg with the shell removed, a glass bottle with an opening slightly smaller than the egg, a 3-inch by 3-inch piece of newspaper and a match. Place the egg on top of the open bottle. Fold the newspaper into a thin strip and light it. Remove the egg from the bottle and drop in the burning strip of paper. Place the egg back on the bottle before the fire can go out. The egg should now slide into the bottle without any help. The reason is due to air pressure. At the beginning of the experiment, air pressure inside and outside the bottle is equal. The burning paper warms the air inside the bottle. But when the fire is extinguished, the air cools and then contracts. The pressure inside the bottle is now lower than the outside. The higher outside pressure forces the egg into the bottle.

Sky in a Jar

This project illustrates why the sky is blue. Fill a straight-sided drinking glass with 8 to 12 ounces of water, add about a teaspoon of milk and stir. Bring the glass and a flashlight into a dark room. Shine the flashlight directly above the surface of the water. Look at the water through the side of the glass; it will have a bluish tint. Hold the flashlight to the side of the glass and look at the water where the light is focused; the water will have a reddish tint. Shine the light under the glass and look down from the top. It should now have a deeper reddish tint. When light shines on the glass from above, the milk scatters blue light to the sides. In the other scenarios, the blue light is scattered and the water appears red.