When you’re a high school student, the world is your oyster. You can choose your classes, schedule, and extracurricular activities. With an abundance of options in high school, you have plenty of ways to fulfil your academic requirements outside of the traditional classroom. Whether through a club, an after-school job, or volunteering at a local organisation, you can fulfil your class requirements without dropping any credits.
The 10th-grade science project will require students to do various experimental endeavours to learn more about the field. At this point, students should be familiar with the chemical/physical properties of various compounds and materials. Some projects may require students to conduct chemical reactions or even use simple testing equipment to explore the relationship between chemicals and their physical effects.
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1. Groovy Airplane
Using basic principles of aerodynamics, students will create a paper airplane that can fly across the room simply using a hole puncher. This is an easy project that will demonstrate basic aerodynamic principles. Make a wooden plane with airfoils. Make dimples in the wings like a golf ball and fly it. Record your findings and test your hypothesis.
2. Hydrogen Fuel Cell
Students will create an electrolysis cell to separate hydrogen and oxygen gases using electricity. Using this technique, they’ll be able to light your household appliances similarly to how the power plants work today.
3. Alginate Farming
This project will allow students to conduct experiments and evaluate the growth of algae. Students will also study the growing environment (nutrients in water) to determine which are necessary for algae growth. Then, students can create their homemade alginate solution for cosmetic purposes.
4. Drought – Fighting Orange Peels
By collecting the orange peels and applying UV-A light, you can kill off the bacteria that cause decay in these peels. With this technique, you’ll have a chance to experiment with developing new products.
5. Density of Vegetables
To determine their density, you can use a scoop to measure the weight of different types of lettuce, spinach, potatoes, and tomatoes. You can also weigh different foods with varying shapes/sizes/densities. See which ones are lighter than others (and why) and how this relates to cell division.
6. Gravitational Investigation
Students will experiment to isolate basic physics principles such as inertia, conservation of energy, acceleration due to gravity, and momentum. They’ll measure specific variables such as the acceleration of moving objects and the speed of falling objects, study the effect of gravity on bodies (falling or not), and learn about the strength of materials. You can conduct this experiment with objects such as a feather, ball bearing, rock, or marble.
7. Cardboard Solar Lamp
Students will set up a cardboard solar lamp to create light using direct sunlight. This is a very simple project that will demonstrate the basic principles of electricity. They can use this technique to help power their lamps during power outages.
8. Automated Quasar Search
Students will use a telescope and computer to discover distant galaxies. This is a fun project that will show students that they can search the skies with some simple equipment. They can then determine which ones are quasars.
9. Wet and Dry Worms
A pot of wet soil, dry soil, and worms are all you need. Wet and Dry Worms are especially useful for students who are studying vertebrates. They’ll be able to observe the worm’s wet and dry reactions and their hibernation phases. You’ll also be able to investigate the effects of environmental changes on organisms.
10. Bottle Rockets
The Bottle Rocket is a great science project that requires minimal materials. Students will experiment with an old bottle and shoot off the “bottle rockets” while working to determine the acceleration of these objects. Demonstrating basic physics principles and constructing a rocket that can fly into the night sky enhances the learning experience.
11. Sparkly Soap Against Germs
You can use a little dish soap to make some sparkly bubbles by simply heating the liquid in a glass. Then, you can let the odors of your dish soap saturate your hands and see how many germs you can grow on them.
12. Bioplastics from Banana Peels
Students will use banana peels to make bioplastics. By heating the banana peels, they will be able to turn them into a plastic similar to Bakelite. This is an interesting project that many students find appealing because it’s something that most people have seen in real life (except for plastic).
13. Cell Phone Radiation
Cell Phones are everywhere these days, even at school. Cell phone radiation detectors are available for purchase, but students can make one independently by using a simple circuit. The cell phone detector will not only determine whether there is any electromagnetic radiation being emitted but also measure the intensity of such energy.
14. Fuel – Less Cars
A car is not made of gasoline. Most cars are fueled with oil. The students need to find and reduce the amount of oil that a car requires for its operation. They can do this by using their science project to find the amount of fuel required for a certain amount of distance or by doing another experiment such as accelerating a certain amount and finding out how much mass they lost due to friction.
15. How Different Drinks Affect Bladder
Students will use simple equipment and techniques to determine how different drinks affect the bladder. Students will have to undergo a few preliminary procedures before beginning the experiment. They’ll fill their bladder with several different drinks and measure how much each drink can hold when they’re ready. This is an educational project that many students find interesting because it results in a product that the student can consume.
16. Lemon Battery
Students will use baking soda and vinegar to demonstrate how electrochemistry works. Many students are amazed when they find out that you can use lemons to create electricity. This experiment will teach students the basic principles of electricity.
17. Photomultiplier
Students can create a small tube that uses ordinary household items to investigate how cathode ray tubes work. The Photomultiplier allows them to recognize the differences in light from various sources and conduct an experiment with different types of materials. After that, they can study how you can use this device for other purposes such as radiation research, medicine, biology, and more.
18. Speed of Light: Air vs Water
Students will use simple techniques to measure the speed of light in various fluids such as water and air. The result of this experiment is a valuable data set for students to compare the speed of light in these different fluids. After that, they can also use their data to make predictions about the speed of light in other fluids.
19. The Power of Citrus
Learners will observe how citric acid reacts with various home items. They’ll be able to add various household items to lemon juice, boil them, and then test the properties of these items. You can also investigate how this process changes the color of these objects. This is a useful science experiment that will demonstrate the basic principles of chemistry to students. The results are usually pretty interesting as well.
20. Homerun Hitters
Educators will experiment to determine the effect of various variables on baseball velocity. They are then required to find a person skilled in baseball and ask them to hit a variety of objects with the ball so that the students can conduct their experiment. After that, students can analyze their data and make several conclusions about their experiment.
21. Ocean Currents
This DIY science experiment utilizes food coloring to generate colored water to study ocean currents. They can use an electronic circuit to experiment with various variables like the voltage, current, brightness, and power source to track their results. It’s a good science project that will demonstrate how water currents flow in nature.
22. Bird Beak Investigations
This experiment is a good project that allows students to investigate the adaptation of bird beaks. They use corn cob, plastic drinking straw, and ping pong ball to examine how they can change their beaks to get the best food. For example, if the coucal bird has a curved beak, it can eat worms, but it will have a flattened end if it eats seeds. It allows students to understand how these birds have adapted to their environments and make them realize how crucial this process is for evolution.
23. Wind-Powered Energy
Students will investigate how the wind can be used as an energy source. They will demonstrate how they can use their science project to harvest energy from the wind. They need only a simple motor, suitable knobs and washers or nuts, and some wires and plastic to get started. Once they finish, they’ll be able to use this information in multiple ways, including building a helpful device such as a wind turbine for power generation.
24. Moon Phases
Students who want to study the moon’s phases will enjoy this experiment. It allows them to examine the moon over time in different light settings and determine whether they can find evidence of a full or crescent moon. This is a simple project that students can use to determine how light is reflected off of the moon during all phases of its cycle through the sky.
25. How Plants Use Water
This experiment uses a variety of everyday household items such as water, jelly, and a plant. Students will observe how the plant and jelly react to various amounts of water. Students will find out how much water is required for the healthy growth of plants. The results and conclusions are usually quite interesting as well.
