It's that time of year - again. My triplets are in 5th grade and required to do science fair. This year they are all in the same class for the first time and would like to do a group project. If possible they would like to do something on multiples/triplets (and I am sure we would come here asking for data since we only know one other set of triplets). If not, there are just looking for any idea they could do together.

Has anyone had their trio do a project together? I would welcome any ideas.

Thanks

Jenni
mom of triplets (10) plus one (5)

The boys seem to be able to work together when they are planning something devious -- but not for something academic! They all did their own projects (Alex just made a model of a plant cell.)

Triplet related...perhaps a hypothesis that pre-natal care and delivery/care of mutliples has improved.

Use data such as year conceived, weeks of gestation, length of stay in NICU, etc to prove hypothesis. Don't know if that would count as a "science" project (like carrying out an experiment).

Vaughn and the ABC Boys
Alex, Bryce, & Calder
3-31-97 @ 28.5 weeks
http://s515.photobucket.com/albums/t356/vaughn3abc/

My kids always enjoyed doing their own projects and then seeing how cool their siblings projects turned out. They were pretty proud of one another.

mom to:
Ryan 32 The Lawyer
Jason 30 The Chief Meteorologist
Chris 30 The College Student
Tim 30 The college grad

I love hearing their versions of their childhood memories!!

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

Gosh I HATED science fair when the triplets were in grade school...

Three projects at once was overkill.

One did a project on multiple zygosity and used photos from all my old triplet mags.

My youngest did a killer project last year in eighth grade. She ran a series of intelligence tests on shelter dogs and then analysed the data by sex and age....turns out the females were the smarties!!

She won an honorable mention and learned so much from the project (it took about a half of a year to collect enough data).

So now I love science fairs...I am a teacher so I get to see our fair once a year and the cool ideas our students come up with. I think with the right guidance, Science Fairs/projects are a valuable learning experience.

Just please not three at a time!!!

Tami

We actually did do projects together. We would take a theme and eaach would come up with ideas to experiment on. Our favorite: helium - filled balloons and the rate of losing diameter and height. Each took a different factor. One took black balloons and white balloons and put them outside in the sun to see if color of the balloon in combination with the heat of the sun affected the diabeter of the balloon. Another one did temperature of the room - same color balloons one room was 10 degrees colder than another. Lastly, we took heat out of the factor and did 2 balloons of 5 different colors in the same room at room temp (72)to see if one color held up better than another. Each wrote up their own report but did a comparision of their results. The teacher loved it! It was very easy to set up and only costs me the price of helium and balloons!