Every year its the same story. You get going on a project and deliver it to the science fair. You watch as someone else gets a prize and you return home. The whole thing is repetitive and uninspiring for you, but it need not be. It is possible to learn a great deal from science fairs even if you do not get that coveted ribbon.

The fairs allow you the opportunity to learn about more science phenomena than what is supposed to be present in your textbooks.A whole world of knowledge opens up to you. You can take inspiration from a particular project and build it even better with your own ideas incorporated in it.

As you work on a particular subject you will learn even more about it. You learn about the laws that work consistently in the natural world. You learn about how to harness nature’s forces for your own purpose. You learn to organize your thoughts and actions as you follow the scientific method in your experimentation.

So there is a great deal more to the science fair than making a boring old project and watching some one else walk away with a prize. It can be a good time to brush up your knowledge about a number of things. You can read more about science projects here.

Science experiments can range from the elementary to the highly complicated. The best part about this variety is that there is some science project for every one to do. This one here is a simple experiment that even a three year old can do, with adult supervision of course.

What you will need are a glass jam jar, 50 ml of water, about a cup of sugar, a string and a pencil. We are going to make sugar crystals from these things. So to start with you need to heat the water. You can pop the water into the jam jar and bring it to a boil in the microwave.

While it is boiling cut some string and tie it to the pencil. You will need to measure the string so that it can hang right down to the bottom of the jam jar when the pencil is rested on the mouth of the jam jar. By now the water would be boiling so bring it out carefully from the microwave and set it down on your work space.

Now add the sugar and stir the water spoonful at a time. Make sure that the sugar dissolves before you add the next teaspoon. We are going to keep repeating this till the water is saturated and no more sugar can dissolve in it. Now place the pencil on the mouth of the jam jar with the string dipped in the sugar water.

Let is stand alone and undisturbed for a day. The next day you will find that the string is covered with crystals of sugar! Pretty cool isn’t it? Try out some more science projects from this website.

Just because we are carbon based we tend to believe that all lifeforms would be the same. It is not just ignorance which makes us assume this, it is also fear of the unknown. After all this is the model of life we know and so this is the one that we search for in the entire universe.

But what if it was not the only model of life? What if there was other life which was not based on evolution coming from water? What if it was based on silicon or some other element? Most scientists who debate the question feel that there is a possible secondary evolution based on ammonia which is not only possible but also probable.

So what would be different in life forms that evolved from ammonia? Well for starters the biochemistry would be different. As would be the chemical building blocks of life. The DNA strand would not be a double helix as the high pH content would split the two strands. So how would they store genetic data? Maybe they would evolve their own systems.

It is all speculative at this stage as far as we are concerned but it is also quite possible that some other form of life exists in the universe and we have passed them by just because we did not recognize them. Here is an interesting science project for you to try out.

In the not so distant future there may come a time when it is not possible for all human beings to live on Earth. The reasons for limiting the population such as plagues and diseases have been all but eliminated. So naturally the human population is growing faster than it has ever done in the history of the planet. So will we have to go hunt for another planet to live on?

The closest planet to the sun in the solar system is Mercury. It is so close to the sun that the heat has not allowed the planet to settle down into terra firma.  Venus is the second planet from the sun. It is hot and volatile. There is no possibility of landing on Venus within the limitations of our current technology.

Mars is kind of inhospitable to human beings right now but yes with a hundred thousand years at our disposal we may be able to shift to the planet. The remaining planets of the solar system aka Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and the dwarf planets in the ends are just too cold to sustain human life.

All in all we can not live on any of the other planets in our solar system. Plus we are yet to find a hospitable planet in any other solar system as well. So it would be prudent to get the human population under control and soon. Here’s a science project you can try out to hunt for a suitable planet.

The angry red planet in the telescope may not seem very hospitable right now. However it is the only other planet in the solar system which human beings may be able to relocate to. In fact here’s what the science project to make Mars a habitable planet would entail. Believe me it will take some doing.

First the atmosphere in Mars would have to be heated. This would be done by injecting carbon dioxide and initiating the greenhouse effect. Yes it would be a good thing on Mars. Next as pressure increased some self supporting life forms would have to be introduced on to the planet.

In about a 100 years the lichen and bacteria would have produced photosynthesis. In 200 years there would be moss and in 300 years you may even see a coniferous forest on Mars. Plant life would perk up the oxygen in the atmosphere but the levels would be low. It would take another hundred thousand years before there would be enough oxygen to support human life on the planet.

Of course due to the lack of water  in adequate amount on Mars most of the planet would still look like a desert somewhat akin to Siberia or the Australian Outback. Still you can always harvest water from the rings of Saturn. Of Course that would be yet another science project of some magnitude.

Want to talk about a difficult science project? I’ve got one for you – a universal language translator. One of the most complex parts of our existence is language.From the time you are a baby your parents try and teach you how to speak, what to say and the correct way to say it. By the time you are an adult you are fairly proficient in your own mother tongue.

Now what happens if you meet someone from another country who does not speak the language you do? Naturally there will be some common signs that you can use to communicate with another human being. For instance you will open you mouth and point inside if you are hungry. Or you will smile and nod to agree with something they try to tell you. It may be difficult but you will get by.

Now imagine if you have to communicate with an alien life form what will you do? For the signs to work you need to have a fairly similar anatomy. Not going to happen with a little green man who has three legs and one large eye is it? So how would you make a universal translator to help you understand what your alien visitor is saying?

To translate a language you need to be aware of words in both languages that are being used. Its highly unlikely that you would know alien speak and so how do you translate words that hold no meaning for you? And that is where lies the challenge in building a universal language translator. Here is a not so challenging science project.

This is the question which man has sought to answer ever since he grew aware that he was on one of a great number of planets. All kinds of science projects and experiments have been carried out over the years to see if it was possible to contact some one else in the universe.

People have transmitted radio waves out into space in the hope of getting some response. There have been others who have spent lifetimes analyzing the noises that they can gather from the outer space hoping to see some pattern which would prove there was intelligent life making the sounds.

The most effective way seems to be to actually reach the other planets and see for ourselves if something intelligent lives there. This is why we have so much interest in space programs. The spirit of the explorer rings true in most human beings as their curiosity is as boundless as ever.

Maybe you will be the person to answer this question. You may be the person who finds intelligent lifeforms on another planet. Of course all it takes is persistence in the right direction. Space travel may not be everyone’s cup of tea but it does still have an important role in our collective future. Find ways to beat gravity here.

In our lives today energy in some form or the other is vital for a comfortable existence. That energy is most prevalent in our lives as electricity. For many of us there is no getting away from using electricity in one form or the other in any given day. Here is a simple science experiment.

For one day try not to use any energy which you have not harnessed yourself. Are you up to the challenge? Imagine your daily routine. Follow yourself in your mind going from one event to the next in your mundane daily existence and notice every part of your life where you use ready made energy.

Once you have identified all the energy needs that you have in a single day work out which ones you will need to replace them with. For instance if you use the car to go to school you are using energy from fossil fuels. This can be replaced by cycling to school and using human muscle energy.

You get the general idea. Now make a list of things that you will be able to do by harnessing your own energy and you will also end up with a second list of what all you can not do without ready made energy. Now here is the point of the exercise, these are things that you may not be able to do in the not too far future as we end up depleting our natural energy resources. Scary isn’t it, this science project.

Craters are formed when the surface of a planet or satellite is struck by a meteorite. The larger the size of the meteorite the bigger the crater. Here’s an interesting science experiment that reveals more about the nature of how craters are formed and how they can affect other craters.

For the small science experiment you will need a plastic tub which you can fill up with flour. Just pour it in and don’t press it down. It should stay loose and fluffy to form the craters well. Now collect some small objects such as rocks or marbles or balls. Just make sure that they have some weight so that they can form decent craters. About a glassful of cocoa power will also be needed.

Have a measuring tape ready to take readings of the lenght andwidth of each crater you will form.  And now we are ready to begin. Keep the tub on a newspaper so that you don’t make too much of a mess when the flour flies as you form each crater. Now fix a distance from the tub from which you will drop the objects into the tub full of flour.

As you drop in an object and a crater is formed gently pick up the object and measure your crater. Now sprinkle some cocoa powder into the crater before you drop the next one. Repeat the process with each crater you make. You will notice that the existing craters begin to change shape as the new ones are formed. What more do you observe? Make notes about this science project to reveal more about the nature of craters.

Think of terms such as  evaporation,condensation, precipitation and collection and the water cycle diagram springs straight to your mind. However have you considered that you can convert the simple water cycle into a science project? It is not too difficult if you put your mind to it. Consider each stage and the way you can make it happen.

Start with evaporation. All you need is some way to boil the water. You can do this by using a flame under a test tube of water. Now connect the top of this test tube with a long glass pipe. Remember the cooling process will take some time to kick in before condensation begins.Angle the glass tube at a downward angle to a test tube in which the precipitation occurs.

Now the lower test tube will collect the water that was evaporated from the original test tube. Here we have the full set of processes that the water cycle has. Simple to make if you conceptualize it well. Just make sure that the glass tube which joins the two test tubes is secured firmly.

In case it is not sealed well all the water vapour will escape your experiment area and there will be no water cycle on display. For the display board you can add a colorful diagram showing the water cycle taking place in nature. You can add definitions of the various processes involved in the water cycle. You can do so much with the display board.