Pick An Appropriate Topic
Sixth-grade students should pick or develop relevant science projects. That is, 6th grade science fair projects are naturally expected to be more advanced than those projects one sees in science fairs for 4th, 5th and other lower-level grades. In 6th grade, science projects with experiments are much more appropriate. Of course, one can still use other types of projects, but experimentation and simulation are pretty much standard at this level. Some Ideas To give you an idea of some of the projects 6th graders could be interested in, here are a couple of projects that others have already done and on which you can pattern your own science fair project. 1) Are there certain types of materials that will not dissolve in hot water? This is a simple question and answering it should be fairly simple. For this type of experiment, you only need to prepare a set of materials that you will try to dissolve in hot water. For instance, you can use sugar, coffee, cloth, detergent, sand, clay, olive oil, paper clips, etc. To perform the experiment, you should keep a kettle of tap water boiling steadily on a stove. Use one bowl of hot water for every type of material that you are experimenting with and try to dissolve each material in turn. You should treat all materials similarly; that is, if you begin stirring the bowl of hot water with the sugar in it, then you should do the same for the paper clip, for the detergent and for the rest of the materials when it becomes their turn. Record every step you make in the experiment and note the result of your attempt to dissolve your materials. Explain the results of your experiment. 2) How does a pulley work? In this type of project, you need to set up a simple pulley system. This is easily enough done. You can even probably purchase a complete pulley system from your local mall. The important thing here is to show how pulleys work to make your job seem lighter. For this project to be successful you should understand the concept of "work" and what factors determine the amount of work that you need to do.
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