You did a biology project
if you ever counted fly's legs.
Well, maybe
it's not as simple as that. We only mentioned flies because
of the famous Aristotle anecdote. Believe it or not, but for many
centuries it was common scientific knowledge that flies have 8 legs. It
looks like there was neither hobby scientists nor science fairs and no
one bothered to do a biology project on the subject and prove that the
great man was wrong...
OK. Let's get to the point. We divided all available biology projects
by main
subject and by common methods or hypothesis used in certain type of
experiments. Scroll down and then follow the link to the information on
the actual projects.
Germination
This group of projects gives plant seeds a hard time. Their goal is to
test how different environment conditions affect seed germination
or
survival rate. Usually you wet, dry, soak them in salt, put them in the
fridge, you name it. Then you check if (and how fast) they grow or not.
But the idea is to make sure that all, but one condition are the same
then check, measure and write down what's happening. This
projects are pretty easy and do not require any special equipment.
You can make them a little more exciting if you find some interesting
hypothesis to test.
Plant Growth.
This projects are
similar to germination. Here you'll check plant
reaction to the different variables of the environment. It's a little
more complicated because germination projects require more space and
more
materials and you may need some specific equipment (for example
hydroponics equipment).
More Botany Projects and Ideas:
Simplest plant cloning
Up and Down - transport of organic substances
in the
plants
Mushroom's fingerprints
Apical Domination in plants
Water in plants.
Killer plants (how plants can control
each other with natural herbicides)
In a way insects are
magical creatures. They are one of the few groups
of animals on the Earth who undergo such a dramatic changes during
their life cycle. We're talking about insects with full
metamorphosis,
such are butterflies, flies, dragonflies and many others.
They are
fascinating subjects for an amateur scientist. Even description and
comparison of a lifecycles of the insects with full and simple (or no)
metamorphosis would make great science project. But then again you can
vary number of conditions for larvae and chrysalises and study how that
will affect them.
This group of projects
researches how certain chemical substance affects
some model animal
or group of animals. Usually such animals are used to monitor water
pollutions, study insects behavior etc. This projects can be very
simple or pretty complex depending on approach. They may or may not
require special equipment.
Anatomy.
Projects in this group
are mostly observational. Anatomy research can
be done on insects, birds, fish and microscopic invertebrates you can
find in a pond water or collect in atidal
zone if you live by the sea.
More Zoology Projects
and Ideas:
Does magnetic field affect regeneration?
How can you measure insect's metabolism
rate (possible inderect methods)
In normal life we use
extraction all the time. For example you're extracting
caffeine
and tannins making a cup of tea in the morning
(it's not very efficient extraction but extraction nonetheless).
Roasting meat you're "extracting" some fat even though it's not your
goal.
This is another powerful method commonly
used in modern biology. In
Greek it's name means "color writing". The word was
introduced by Russian professor Michail Tsvet who's surname means
"color" in Russian. His first chromatography experiments were done on
colorful plant pigments in 1901. He divided them in chalk column,
proving that apparent green leaf color actually is a mixture of many
substances.
Leaf pigments are a
good subject for simple chromatography and we'll play with them too.
Thin
layer chromatography of the black marker ink
is the detailed example of the cromatography expariment setup for an
easy
science project. As simplyfied version you can try a paper
chromatography.
Yeasts are safe and
commonly used single cell fungi. Yeasts are one of
the very important model organism in microbiology and molecular
genetics. Remarkably yeasts can live with and without oxygen being both
aerobic and anaerobic organism. Simple experiments study
yeasts aerobic and anaerobic metabolism
various environmental conditions and
their effect on yeasts
genetics transformation (with aid of
commercially availabe scientific kits)
Experiments
with bacteria, algae and fungi.
One good thing about
microbiology is that you do not need a microscope
to do a lot of microbiology experiments. Using basic microbiology
methods you can study bacterial contamination of the surfaces, air,
soil, etc. It's possible to calculate how many bacterias live
in
an environment. You can also grow and compare microscopic algae from
the
different sources or study microscopic fungi.
There are endless
possibilities for very cool experiments.
However working with
microscopic flora and fauna you should always
remember that there is always possibility that you got pathogen
bacteria/mold/algae in your petri dish. All microbiological experiments
should be conducted under adult supervision and using reasonable safety
precautions.
Direct
observation of microscopic plants/animals
If you already own or
considering buying a microscope you are in very
good position. There are endless subjects for observation/life cycle
studies and anatomy studies of single cell or simple multicellular
animals!
More
Microbiology Projects and Ideas
How sunlight affects different
microscopic organisms
