I always dreaded science fair time. I loved every teacher who made it optional!!!

All our science fair projects were individual projects and they each came up with their own ideas.

In the lower elementary grades, I know they could do polls and just analyze the data into a simple graph. For 5th grade, more was expected. I would ask their teacher what the grade criteria might be.

For 6th grade, one of my boys put nails into three different solutions to find out the erosion patterns. Another boy took a ton of samples from shopping carts throughout our town (5 different stores). He grew them in petri dishes and showed his results. I can't even recall the third experiment.

Once they are in junior high, there are no science fairs. However, one of my boys is taking honors science class that essentially requires a science project. He is testing the effect on the speed of sound through different gasses (helium, compressed air, and propone). Thank goodness, he's a bit of a science geek like my dh (a physics major). They are having so much fun doing the project. My son is so into it and completely understands the concepts. On the other hand, I don't even understand why anyone would care!

Sharon
12 year old b/b/b + 16 year old son