Please provide at least 5 ideas for a science investigatory project... Please?

Question

Actually, this is for my 2nd year high school daughter who keeps on bugging me about it. Please be kind to a helpless father who doesn't have much IP (as she calls it) ideas in his head. I would really be grateful to all who would take this request seriously and with great desire to help.

Answer 1

1 thing to do is measuring the speed at which different liquids change temperature. It's a really easy one to do, because you simply need to get the 2 at the same temperature and then leave them side by side and occasionally put in a thermometer and record the temperatures. Getting them at the same temperature to start might be kind of tricky, but it shouldn't be too bad. You can have them hot or cold to start by boiling or putting in the fridge and if they're uneven keep one boiling/cooling a little longer until they're about the same. Example of liquids: water and coffee.

Similar idea, what liquid evaporates faster? Get them at the same temperature to start like before and ensure there is the same amount of each, then just leave them side by side in the sun for some hours and measure how much is left afterwards.

One interesting experiment i did in science class was seeing what factors influence the speed of a pendulum. Get some weights (small ones, 50g, 100g, etc) and tie them to the end of a string which is then swung. Make sure you carefully check the weight being used, the length of string and how high up you hold the weight before releasing it, then measure the speed with a stopwatch (i.e. how long it takes to make some swings) and then change the factors i just mentioned and keep recording the results.

Do heavy or light balls bounce higher? Hold the balls up at a specific height, drop them and measure how high they bounce. Make sure it's on a flat surface though. If you have a video camera that would be great for making the measurements, cause you could do it next to a surface with markings for height or something and then go through the video and find the point where it stops rising and check the height. If not, well you'll just have to try and catch the balls at their peak and make some rough measurements won't you? Hopefully the difference will be so large that the inaccuracy wouldn't affect the results anyway.

How much does spinning affect your ability to walk straight? This one probably sounds pretty stupid, but if your daughter can find some willing test subjects, I suppose it would make for a bit of fun, laughing at dizzy peoples attempts to walk straight. As long as it's set out well and all factors are taken into consideration (speed of spinning, amount of spins, person spinning, etc) you could still get perfectly good marks for it. (In one of my year 10 science projects, one of the best marks was given to a guy who did one on which chocolate chip cookies were better or something like that. If he can do so well with THAT you could probably do just about anything). Basically, for this get a test subject to spin at a certain speed for a certain number of spins, see how well they can walk over a straight line, then repeat a few times, recording results as you go and change the number of spins and go through the process again. Warning: Somebody may throw up, lol.

Answer 2

From one Dad to another, I feel your pain, lol.

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Answer 3

for an investigatory project you need the following:

1. materials

2. creativity (although not much)

3. feasibility (how useful is it, how it is used, etc.)

4. theoretical application (projecting every possibility)

5. practical application (trial and error)