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2nd Grade Science Fair Project IdeasHelp
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Hobby or CollectionSeed Collection. How Plants Spread. Goal of this 2nd grade science fair project is to study different ways that weeds use to spread around habitat. Plants can not walk. So how they solve the problem of expansion into the new territory? Some plants use their roots to spread and occupy more and more space. This is special case. The shoots that develop in such kind of reproduction are in fact the same original plant - they are genetically identical. However this strategy may result in interesting situation when very big territory will be consumed by single plant which will look like many individual plants unless you bother to check their root system or DNA. The biggest and oldest plant on the Earth is not the huge sequoias or ancient araukarias but Aspen colony in Utah which cover more then 43 hectares and claimed to be more then 80000 years old! Most of the plants while occasionally using vegetative reproduction mainly use seeds to spread out. In the process of evolution plants developed many different techniques and strategies to do it efficiently. They use
 Check this funny page featuring some mechanisms of seeds dispersal. In this project we are after the seeds that like to take ride. And you're going to play the role of the host animal. Procedure:
To the top of the page Insect collection. Insect collection is one of the most exciting activities for the 2nd grade science fair project you can imagine. It may or may not involve insect killing so it's your choice if you want only to catch insects and observe their behavior and anatomy and then release or kill them and put them on the board for display. In any case you'll need special equipment to catch insects, keep them, prepare and display them. You can catch insects pretty much anywhere. You should remember however that in some locations you'll need permit to do that. Website of the Bohart Museum of Entomology has high quality page with details on how to collect insects and prepare specimens. Check it out! To the top of the page Model or PresentationInsect anatomy and lifecycle.  If you don't have time to collect insects or you don't want to kill them but you're still interested in their fascinating world than making presentation about them is the way to go. For second grade science fair project first you'll need to study insect body plan. Try to find answers for this questions (you may omit some of them for simplicity):
Draw insect body and mark body parts. Draw insect life cycles. Check our Monarch Butterly page. Compare insects body plan with body plans of other animals. For example you'll find differences in body plan of insect and mammal (human for example). Some animals look very similar to the insects. Spiders are one of them. What are the differences between insect and spider anatomy? What are the differences between insect and prawn body plans? To the top of the page Bird Feeder. Building a bird feeder and studying birds from your neighborhood can make excellent 2nd grade science fair project. First of all let's check what kind of birds you may expect to see. Wikipedia has detailed bird lists for many regions and individual states. For example here is the list that cames up in the google search for "birds of California". This lists can be pretty long. You probably would not like check every bird in it but it may help to learn more about birds that will come to eat from your feeder. Even if you live in the urban area the amount of different species that will come may be quite big. Here is another valuable resource that will help you to find scientific names of your birds. It's called visual bird key. How to make a feeder? You can either buy one of the many fancy feeders available on the market or make one yourself. One of the simplest solutions is this pine cone bird feeder. Check other feeder types. They'll need some time and builder skills. Second grade children will need adult assistance to build them. So what to do when feeder is ready? Set it up in the place which does not look dangerous from the bird's point of view. In other words it should not be close to the road, too far from the trees and open for view form any direction. Cats and dogs should not be able to reach the feeder. Add food and clean up feeder every day or two. Birds may not come right away. It'll take some time to get used to new free food source. Make notes what time of day birds prefer to check the feeder (different species may prefer different time). Week or two after feeder setup you should be able to start regular observations. For 2nd grade science fair project try to answer the following questions:
Notes:
To the top of the page ExperimentHow much water do plants evaporate? (transpiration).Believe it or not but plants do breath. They "exhale" carbon dioxide and oxygen (depending on lighting conditions). They use tiny little openings on the leaves called stomata that control the amount of gas exchange. They also loose water through them. This process called transpiration. The goal of this science project is to find how much water plants evaporate depending on the type of plant and conditions of the environment. There are many ways you can perform transpiration experiment. You can check for example if there is a difference in amount of water that plant loose during the day or night, difference in amount of water plants loose in the sun or in the shadow, temperature, wetness of the soil etc. For this easy experiment you'll need plastic bags of different sizes (look at the size of the tested plant), tape, and test tube or glass to collect water. Having camera to register the experiment results is always a good idea! Experiment procedure: Carefully put plastic bag over the few leaves or small branch (if you compare different plants make sure that size of leaves and their amount in the bag is similar otherwise experiment results will be invalid). Wrap bag tight around the branch with the tape. Decide the duration of the experiment (for example 24 hours) Observe the bag every few hours. At the end of experiment time carefully collect water from (each) bag in the test tube or small glass. This is the water lost by plant to the air. Plants are great climate regulators! During the hot day they loose the water and cool down themselves and the place where they grow. Knowing the amount of water lost by the few leaves in certain amount of time it's easy to calculate how much water gets back in the atmosphere from the whole plant... Well, maybe we'll do it next year... :) Here is real example of this experiment that was conducted by two different schools. To the top of the page Plant in the Maze. You probably know about rats finding the way through the maze. Could plant do something like that? Yes it could. As long as it can "see the light". This simple experiment tests plant ability to grow toward the light source. It's really easy to setup using the old shoe box and few cardboard pieces. To the top of the page Water Transport In Plants. Water travels in the plants from roots to leaves and flowers. It carry minerals important for plant growth and development. There is an easy experiment that helps to make this plant water transport visible. You'll need 2 cups, food coloring, water and white carnation. Here you'll find simple setup for experiment on water transport in plants. To the top of the page Flytrap Experiments.  Normally plants do not have fast moving parts. Plants do move though, for example flowers can open and close petals during the day and leaves can move following sun. Plants also grow toward the light. Only few plants in the world can do fast movements and those plants are hunters! For this experiment you'll need few plants of Venus Flytrap - carnivorous plants that can catch and digest insects. The goal of the experiment is to observe, study and draw catching mechanism of Venus Flytrap. Materials: 2 Venus Flytrap plants. You can buy them in gardening shop. Match or cotton tip. Easy experiment on Venus Flytrap behavior: 1) Carefully rub trapping structure on one of the leaves. Watch how it snaps close catching the match. Draw (or take a photo of) open and closed trap. Snap few more traps, it's fun to do. You can even feed the plant - catch small insect and carefully set it inside the trap. Note that if there is nothing left in the trap it will open in few hours. 2) Let's find out what part of the trap reacts to the prey. VERY carefully touch the edge of the trap (area with long green "eyelashes"). Does it react? What happens if you touch pink inner side of a trap (avoid the hair like structures inside the trap!). Does it react? Now what happens if we touch only one "hair" inside the trap ONCE? Does it snap? What if you touch one hair twice with minute interval? What if interval is less then a minute? What if you touch two different hairs with big and small time lapse? Write down the results! You'll become an expert in the carnivorous plant behavior. To the top of the page Make Magnetic Field Visible. This video tells how to make simple magnetic field visualizer at home. To the top of the page Dead Air - Making Carbon Dioxide. The goal of this easy experiment is to show how carbon dioxide is different from the normal air. This experiment should be carried by adult or under adult supervision. What you need:
What happens with the candle fire? Carbon dioxide is heavier then air and it does not support combustion, it will flow over the glass edge and down to the bottom of the bowl replacing the air and extinguishing the candle fire! The same principle is used in some fire extinguishers. Simpler variant of the same easy experiment: lite the match and put it in the glass, keeping it above the surface of the vinegar. To the top of the page  |
