So far we have hear about the ozone depletion at the South Pole and over the Antarctic region, but this year the scientists have recorded enough of ozone depletion in the skies above the Arctic to declare that an Arctic Ozone Hole is now a reality. The science experiments that recorded the data over the Arctic say that things are as bad at the North Pole as they are at the South Pole.

The formation of the ozone hole in the Antarctic region has been an annual feature for some decades now, but things are surely getting worse if the same problem is now cropping up in the Arctic region as well. The ozone hole is caused by the combination of cold temperatures and lingering ozone-depleting pollutants in the atmosphere.

The ozone layer is vital to the well being of the denizens of earth as it filters out unwanted radiation entering the atmosphere. The constant depletion of ozone by reaction with polluting chemicals has been playing havoc with this protective layer in the atmosphere.

Despite the ban on aerosols that were seen as the primary culprits, the damage that has already been done is considerable. It is now a vital science project which seeks to save what is left of the ozone layer and to somehow refill the ozone holes that crop up annually at the poles.

There is no doubt that outer space has held human beings fascinated all through history. In the very first science projects man sought to map out the stars in their constellations. This ancient map has been added to by each passing civilization as technology improved. Today we have a much better picture of the night sky than the ancient tribes did and still we continue to learn.

Each year new data is added by scientists who painstakingly study separate sections of the sky. They use powerful telescopes and photograph the view so that they can analyze and study it better. One such science project has been undertaken by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE.

The WISE shows that there are significantly lesser near-Earth asteroids in the mid-size range than previously thought. This was sought out by a survey project, called NEOWISE. In this the scientists explored the entire celestial sky twice in infrared light between January 2010 and February 2011.

As the data from these continuously taken photographs of the celestial sky were studied it was found in this science project that the danger to earth from asteroid collisions was not quite as high as previously thought.  As per the NASA website – “WISE captured a more accurate sample of the asteroid population than previous visible-light surveys because its infrared detectors could see both dark and light objects.”

In high risk professions such as the military, para military, the fire fighters and first response workers at emergencies the robots can play an important function. The robots can help save lives of these people and reduce the risk profile to their jobs. Every year there are science projects based on robots that can reduce the risk to human life.

Some of the jobs that a robot can do which can help save lives are listed here. The bomb disposal squad will be happy to work with a remote controlled robot when they try to diffuse bombs. It is traumatic for team members to see their colleague blown to bits in front of their eyes as he works on diffusing a bomb.

With fire fighters a robot that can go into burning buildings and identify just where the trapped human beings are can make the job much easier. The robot can guide the people who can move through the smoke filled buildings to an exit to save their lives. they can also pin point the location and stand guard with people who have been injured and need help to be physically removed from the building.

In case of the military services it is much easier to send in a robotic drone on spying missions than a human being. Even if the unmanned aerial drone is shot down you do not lose a pilot. Robots can and do save lives every day. It is essential to support science projects that help robots to save human lives.

Machines have been made by man to help him with almost all aspects of his life. Man can claim that all these robotics based science projects are helping him to get things done faster and more efficiently than before, but does all the help that man have improve the quality of his life?

Is it really worth spending the billions that get spent annually on robotics? Or are we just so busy developing new toys that we lose the focus on what is truly important. It is not denied that machines and robots have made it easier for us to do a number of tasks, but these were tasks we could do any way.

So by making the machines and robots work for us are we giving them the power to run our lives? So far there has not been developed successfully the kind of artificial intelligence that would be harmful to human beings. But just how soon will we have machines thinking and then what will happen when the machines realize that we the human creators are redundant?

In popular science fiction there is always the battle between man and machine looming large in the future. Perhaps if we choose to develop the right sort of machines it would be possible to skip that battle altogether. Maybe we can work out the probability of keeping machines and robots from fighting the war against humans in a science project.

Robots have been seen as a possible way to reduce risk to human life and to help humans so that their time can be freed up for more useful ventures. Many robotics based science projects have these two points in part of their aim. So the first space going humanoid robot the R2 would be expected to keep to these aims.

The Robonaut 2 is a humanoid robot which has a torso and arms but no legs. It moves on tracks and has been designed to work besides humans in outer space. The R2 went up to the International Space Station in the last trip of the space shuttle Discovery. It has been reassembled by the scientists in the space station recently.

Now the R2 has just completed its first mission. It carried out repair work on the exteriors of the International Space Station which involved replacing a faulty electrical circuit. Th repairs tool nearly two days to complete, but the robot saved one of the astronauts on the space station a spacewalk.

It is considered a good likelihood that in the future the robonauts will be able to handle such standard repairs all the time leaving the human scientists and researchers free to pursue their experiments and conduct their research. The R2 is the future of robotic personal help and the science project is bound to improve as it goes along the way.

For the physically disabled it is quite difficult to get anything done by themselves in their daily routine. There have been various science projects that have tried to work out a personal robotic helper for the handicapped. These were given set programming and followed a specific order.

This means that if a new situation which is not programmed comes up the robot becomes useless. Now all that is about to change. With the help of a project called ROBODANCE 5 Robert Oschler hopes to build a robot that can be told by the patient exactly what to do. The robot will be able to read facial movements, jaw clenches, and track eye movements.

All this visual data is fed into what is called the Emotiv system. Now while it is not strictly reading a thought right out of the brain, it is quite close. If the robot can interpret the new data and take actions accordingly it is a major step above and beyond what a programmed robot was able to do in the past.

There are also some science projects on robotics which are currently working on getting the robots into the area of mind reading. Kinesics and Synchronization in Personal Assistant Robotics or KASPAR is one such robot that is making headway in the field.

The last thing that comes to your mind when you think of a slab of concrete is smart green choice and somehow that is exactly what Henk Jonkers has come up with. In an interesting science project conducted in the Technical University Delft, in the Netherlands Jonkers has come up with bio- concrete.

Microorganisms are added in the concrete mix that can actually fix the cracks that appear in the concrete over time. The bacteria is of a type which eats calcium lactate and excretes calcite which fills up the crack. The spores of this bacteria can lie dormant for 50 years till water enters the material.

The bacteria lies in a dormant form within the concrete in the highly alkaline environment of the material and becomes active when the material cracks enough to let through water. Now it begins to multiply and grow and its excretion is the material that becomes the filling repair of the crack that was formed.

Is it totally ingenious or totally far fetched? The trials conducted by Jonkers have been successful enough and may be the concrete may come into commercial production in the not so distant future. Some more experimentation may find additional uses for the main product of this science project.

Science Projects dealing with living beings can be a bit complex to set up as no two living creatures are identical. Even within the same species an individual member may have traits that another one may not. Still with insects the number of variable traits is not that many and when it comes to food there may be more than one common trait.

This science experiment will allow you to check if honeybees can identify colors and remember them when they set out hunting for nectar. You will need the help of a beehive cultivator. We are going to use flowers in two color say red and blue, with a dip in between where a fluid can be stored. The red artificial flowers are to be filled with sweet water and the blue ones are to be filled with salty water.

Now the area is to be cordoned off and the beehive cultivator is to release the bees. Notice how long it takes them to identify the red flowers as akin to the nectar and reject the salty blue flowers. Now have the bees returned to the hive by the cultivator. Now switch the places of the blue and red flowers in the area of experimentation.

Have the bees released again. You will notice that they go directly to the red flowers avoiding the blue ones altogether despite the location having been changed. Interesting science project to help confirm that honey bees can indeed identify and remember colors.

Most of us learn in school at a very young age that plants produce food using the process of photosynthesis. We know that the process involved the interaction of the green pigment known as chlorophyll and the presence of the gas carbon dioxide. Now in this science project we are going to attempt to prove these facts.

We will use two as close to identical plants to begin the experiment. Have them potted in identical pots as well which can be covered with a bell jar. It is transparent but does not allow outside air in. Now here is how we will proceed. One plant will be given plenty of carbon dioxide while the other one will be starved of the essential gas.

In the first bell jar with the plant under it light a candle and leave it to burn off all the oxygen. This plant under the bell jar will have a large supply of carbon dioxide. The other bell jar with the plant under it will have a dish with caustic soda. The caustic soda will absorb all the carbon dioxide in the air and the plant will have access to none. Seal the bell jars with petroleum jelly.

Now leave the plants undisturbed for a day. After that you will notice that the plant which had access to carbon dioxide has more starch in its leaves than the one that did not have any carbon dioxide with it under the bell jar. Quite an interesting science project.

Now here is an interesting proposition for a science project. Can you bake an ice cream? Of the first response is likely to be of course not. Ice cream belongs in the freezer and not in the oven. Put it in the oven to bake and you would not have any ice cream left but just some flavored milk in the bowl.

But humor me and think about it for a second. If you could actually bake ice cream wouldn’t it make an amazing experiment? Guess what? I am not kidding, you can actually bale ice cream in the oven. Want to know how? Just read on and who knows you may be able to try it out on your own to show how air bubbles can slow the penetration of hot air, resulting in a delicious baked ice-cream cookie treat.

Place some cookies on a baking sheet. Take about 4 eggs and separate the egg whites from the yolks, get your mom to help with this step. Now whisk the egg whites with Castor sugar  till you have mixed them well and stiff. Preheat the oven while you do the egg whisking. Now add a scoop of ice cream into the egg and sugar mix and coat it well.

Place it on top of the cookie in the baking sheet. Bake the ice cream for five minutes and remove the baking sheet from the oven. The ice cream would not have melted and the coating on it would give a nice crunchy outer casing to it. Here’s one tasty science project that you can dig into.