Environmental Science Fair Projects

Environmental pollution science fair projects are very hot with science fair participants and judges. If you are interested in how our actions impact the health of the environment, then this is the project genre for you. Fortunately, within the genre of environmental pollution projects are numerous sub-topics that you can select from. Some of the topics that will produce the best projects include:

1. Can oil products be biodegraded using microorganisms?
2. What takes longer to biodegrade, copy paper or newspaper?
3. What byproducts are produced by biofuels?
4. How effective are landfills at decomposing garbage?
5. How polluted is the air inside your school?

When you work on environmental science fair projects there are situations where it may not be safe or practical for you to collect a sample. For example, you may need a water sample from a pond and not have a wide enough bank to walk down to the water's edge. In these situations you can use a robotic assistant. The Lego Mindstorms NXT kits work well for these types of projects. You can use the parts that come with the kit to develop a robot that can be used to collect water, soil or plant material samples for your experiments.

There are several environmental topics that you can select from when building an environmental science fair project. In addition to the topics listed above you may also want to consider focusing your project on wave energy, lunar effects on plant growth or maybe even effects of human methane on the ozone layer. Your topic doesn't have to be boring it can also be gross or funny.

First grade students are sponges for information. However, if you really want to help your students to develop a love for science then you need to make science class interactive. One way that you can do this is by having your students complete 1st grade science projects.

Goals and Objectives

The primary goal of 1st grade science projects is to excite students about science. When this lesson is done students will be able to identify the various parts of a plant and explain the germination process.

Anticipatory Set

The simplest 1st grade science projects that you can complete are germination projects. Germination projects look at how a plant develops from a seed into a plant. Before you can start the germination project you will need to introduce your students to the vocabulary for this project. The vocabulary terms that you will need to teach your students include the names for the parts of the plant, the stages of germination and the names for the equipment that they will be using. The best way to introduce science terminology is to hand out a vocabulary list and cover each word in a multimedia demonstration. If you have a video that relates to the parts of plants then you can show this as well.

Guided Study

The guided study portion of this lesson plan will be the execution of the germination project. For this project you will give each student the materials that they need to complete their projects, such as paper towels, seeds, paper cups and dirt. This project will take several weeks to complete. In the first step you will germinate the seeds by placing the bean seeds in a damp paper towel and allow it to sprout a root and a stem. The next step will involve planting the seed in the dirt. The third step will be charting the growth and development of the plant.

Homework

The homework for this project will be to create a report on their project. This report will include drawings of their bean plant in its various stages and a short written description of each step. Parents can help their children write the report by acting as their child's secretary.

If you are interested in more ideas for transitioning these simple projects into science fair projects then visit Teacher's Guide - Science Fair Projects.