Parents & Teachers - Fun Everyday Science projects and Experiments for Primary school children

Tution Centre Singapore shares with you science projects for Lower Primary students.

Parents & Teachers - Fun Everyday Science projects and Experiments for Primary school children

Tution Centre Singapore shares with you science projects for Upper Primary students.

 

Music and Science
Music and science - rarely does one subject evoke the other as often or as well.  We have to be clear, however, by what we use as our definition of music. 

There are several differing opinions about what can be defined as music.  Some would argue that music can be any sound whatsoever, and said sound would be music to some and noise to others.

We are going to take the position that music is some kind of ordered sound and any further reference to music will have this assumption in mind.

 

Music or Noise

A fairly popular science fair project is the topic of "Music vs. Noise" - tread carefully!  In order to pursue this as your topic of interest, you will have to make and state your assumptions very clearly in order for this particular project to be taken seriously and have merit.

Our suggestion would be to state what definition of music you intend to use.  Wikipedia covers music and science pretty well, and is a good starting point to get yourself more familiar with the ins and outs of what constitutes ordered sound - music.

When creating a music and science project based upon some variation of comparing music to noise, take care not to conduct a survey.  Having an opinion is all well and good - but it is not science.  Stick to the measurable facts. 

 

Music and Biological Systems

There has been quite a lot of interest in this combination: does music have an effect on biological systems?  There have been studies suggesting that various forms of music might have an effect upon the learning capabilities of human subjects. 

Other studies have discounted these reports, this investigation on music and science goes over both standpoints and show another experiment in this area. 

Still other experiments tried to test whether music had an effect upon the rate of growth in plants, and yet others tried to determine if there was a link between heart rate and music while doing a physical activity.

If you would like to do an experiment like these, make sure to follow the scientific method, do proper research, and follow the guidelines for your science event.  And, of course, have some fun!  This can be a great topic to investigate, leading to all sorts of interesting science.

 

 

Simple Machine Science Project
 
Doing a simple machine science project is a great way to see how simple machines, when put together, form the basis of much of our modern world.

Put simply, a simple machine is a device that only requires a single force to do work.   We are going to cover the basic ideas behind two of the most popular simple machines here: levers and pulleys.

 

Levers

Lets take an example: a lever.  In this picture, the man is using a simple machine, a lever to lift a heavy rock he would not otherwise be able to move.

 

The simple machine pictured here is composed of the rod (lever) and fulcrum.  The closer the fulcrum is to the object being moved, the easier it will be to move the object - that is, the closer the fulcrum is to the object being moved, the less force is required to move it.

A simple machine science project can be created using just this one concept - did you know that many common tools are based upon the lever?  Crowbars, pliers, scissors and row boat oars are all based upon levers and fulcrums. Here is a great link about levers to help you with your simple machine science project.

 

Pulleys

 

Without going into the detailed physics behind how they work, pulleys allow a person to lift an object using about half the effort it would normally require. 

What's going on here?  Take a look at this diagram:

 

Lets say that the grey wheel in the center is a pulley, and the purple line is a rope - the grey weight-like object is, well, a weight - of 10 pounds.  Now, if you were to try and lift the weight without the pulley in place, it would feel like you are lifting a 10 pound weight.  No surprise. 

But if you were to setup a pulley system like the one shown here - with one end of the rope attached to a fixed point, like a wall or a rigid beam, the pulley as shown with the weight attached to the pulley, then thread the rope through the pulley wheel - when you pull on the left side of the rope (the one with the arrow on the end of it) it would feel like you are lifting only 5 pounds, even though you are lifting 10!

Are we cheating somehow?  How can you do half the work you normally would need to lift the weight using this simple machine science project?  The answer is that we are not doing half the work.  Even though the weight will feel lighter, we will have to pull twice as long to get the weight to the same height that we would get if we did not use the pulley system.

So, we are exchanging the force necessary to lift the weight for the distance or amount of pulling we need to do.  No cheating involved.

Volcano Project
A volcano project for a science fair or class assignment is typically composed of three elements: a inverted cone made of clay or Paper Mache with a hole at the tip, a plastic tube inserted into the hole filled with dry baking soda at the (closed off) bottom and subsequently filled with red-colored vinegar to initiate the 'eruption', and a brief display explaining how a volcano normally works.

 

So why cover what is almost universally considered over-done like the volcano project?  Because, occasionally, it is a required assignment, and because, occasionally, the person interested in doing this experiment is really interested in volcanoes and other geothermal phenomenon.  There is also still some mileage in a well done volcano science fair project if the experimenter has a unique take on it.

In either volcano project case, the brief description above will probably be enough to get you started on the model and the remainder of this page will give you good information about the actual workings of volcanoes and links to more volcano information resources.

 

Brief Synopsis

Volcanoes occur due to deeply buried (about 50-60 miles or more) magma (liquid rock) being pushed up to the surface of a planet (like earth).  They often occur at the edges of tectonic plates, although hotspots (volcanoes not occurring at the edges of tectonic) plates do occur.  When the magma reaches the surface it will erupt from underground (often violently.) 

Once it reaches the surface it will cool to form mounds of solid rock.  Over the years, an active volcano can erupt many times and for varying amounts of time.  This action eventually creates a mountain of rock.  During a particularly violent eruption, the top of this mountain may be blown off due to the gas pressure built up as the magma rose to the surface.  This action creates the often recognized crater at the top of volcanoes.