What's a good science project for my 7th grader?

[TNDemo]

Having problems coming up with ideas this year.

[Superfly]

1. When I was in 7th grade,

my friend and I formulated a thermite reaction for our scientific experiment, which produced a lot of sparks and flames and smoke...which is good for kids that age.

[BigMcLargehuge]

2. grand unified field theory!

no, just kidding..

How about using electricity to conduct sound over short distances... you know, make a small telephone... you can talk about conductance, resistance, compare sound pressure waves (voice) to electrical signals (what travels over a wire), electromagnetism, attenuation...

it's limitless I tell you!

[NightTrain]

3. Your Ass from a Hole in the Ground: A Comparative Study

:hi:

[DuctapeFatwa]

4. How Long Different Things Take to Dissolve in Coca-Cola

you get a piece of paper, a piece of cloth, a piece of meat, a nail and a rock, and put each one in a jar of coca-cola and sit them in a row.

Note the date and time.

Check every day, and when you see one has dissolved, note the date and time.

[Endangered Specie]

5. either that...

or use the same object in different drinks (coke, pepsi, dr pepper, water, OJ, punch etc...)

[jobycom]

6. Solar power

Could do a report, showing how it can be used to power a home, and the range of products on the market.

Or an experiment of some form, maybe on a couple of small commercial products. Compare solar radios or lights to battery-powered ones-- which last longer, can they last long enough to use at night, something like that.

Or something more simple, like how hot can you get a can of water using different methods of solar heat-- direct exposure, reflecting off a mirror, or in front of a parabolic reflector (tinfoil and cardboard). Heat the cans for the same amount of time and see which gets hottest.

Or you can try dropping a small Republican and a large Republican from a radio tower to see which hits the ground first, or whether the conservative radio waves will save them. Worst case, you lose a couple of votes for the Republican candidates. Could even repeat this experiment until you win an election or two.

[yella_dawg]

7. I won the regional contest

with a solar powered motor. But that's so 1960's. Fairly easy to do, though.

[jokerman93]

8. Definitely go with

a tacheon powered subspace neuralizer

[OneBlueSky]

9. well, I did a parabolic microphone at about that age . . .

and won second prize . . . I got one of those snow discs, whatever they're called . . . the ones made out of aluminum and shaped like a concave disk . . . I found the center, drilled a hole, and mounted a threaded rod that stuck out of the thing . . . I put a small microphone on the end of the rod and hooked it up to a portable tape recorder with earphones . . . turned it on and adjusted the rod in and out until I got the best reception . . . was able to pick up low conversations all the way from the other end of the cafeteria . . . a low-tech but effective listening device . . .

[alphafemale]

10. Find a regional interest thing...f'rinstace

My daughter won a grand champion 4-H mini-booth for actually finding uses for kudzu.

A bane of Southern existence.

Granted different competitions...but the concept is the same.

Find a novel angel.

Some things are so --done-- these judges have seen the usual over and over.

[TrogL]

11. anything with materials

how things wear, how things stretch, how things break

[On the Road]

12. The Effect of Diet on Chickens

or mice. Or something else that grows quickly. You can show the results live in side-by-side cages. That project beat mine when I was that age. My father found something in Scientific American about the effects of ultrasound on radishes, which is what I did.

An unusual one I remember was a vertical representation of the local geology -- the layers were made of actual topsoil, clay, sandstone, or whatever.