Does any one have some fun science projects I can do with my 8th grader?

Answer 1

I homeschool my children and we do various science projects and activities.

Recently, we visited the Veternary school of our local university, Louisiana State University. They had some really cool things to show the kids and they were all very patient with my son and answered all of his questions - and those they could not answer, they looked up or asked a prof to help. It was a great experience.

Check with your local college's science department to see if you and your children can tour it.

Look into local museums. We have a science one here.

Does your city have a planetarium? That is a great way to start a project on mapping the skies.

I bought my children venus fly traps. We learned all the parts of the plant, what it was composed of (lignin, etc) and researched this particular plant. It was cool.

We raided our kitchen and logged a lot of the food that we had in there, including the nutritional information. I challenged them to find five items that they thought were healthy (they could not peek at the nutritional label) and five that were not healthy. They were surprised with the results.

We also studied what the various vitamins and minerals do to aid the body. Then we researched to find which foods were rich in each particular vitamin and mineral. Finally, we went to a farmer's market and purchased out five favorite fruits and vegetables, and one that we had never tried. We went home and created recipes, sampled the fruit or veggie that we had never tried and wrote a "food review" on it.

I have found that everything can be turned into a lesson and half the time they don't even realize that they are learning! We have taken apart TVs, radios, telephones and other things just to see how they are put together.

Check to see if there is a freecycle in our city. You can find free stuff and good information. It is totally free to join and use and lots of fun. I have met many great people there and gotten many things to aid my children's education. I have gotten text books, notebooks, models, projects and advice. I have even met some great friends. You can probably get some good tools there.

Answer 2

Backyard Ballistics

http://www.backyard-ballistics.com/

http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/amasci.html

Build your own hot air balloon, rocket or robot. There are tons of projects out there. The library or the local bookstore would be a great place to start. The Mythbusters even have a book or two out with ideas in them.

I have to say, anything that involves blowing up, shooting out or some kind of whacky chemical reaction is probably going to hook your kid's interest (I know it hooks mine...and I'm pretty childish sometimes). I definitely think you'll get cool points w/ your preteen for doing something like that. Not many parents will help you build a cannon. Another fun project, for us anyway, my son and I built a tornado simulator. That was kind of neat. He's only in 2nd grade, though, so probably something more "explosive" for 8th grade.

Answer 3

You can have your 8th grader get some rocks and show how science proves that the earth is over 4 billion years old.

Answer 4

Do optical illusions....Take a picture of the American flag and paste it on a poster board. The make a small dot about a pencil lenth under the flag.(about the size of a small eminem) The take your 8th grader have them focus on the flag without blinking for 20-25 seconds. Let them blink and tell them to look at the dot and ask what they see.
(they should see a different colored flag)

Answer 5

Depends on what the eight grader likes. But the Volcano lesson is always fun and a good crowd pleaser.

Answer 6

Janice VanCleave has a great series of books with experiments in just about every area of science. The local library should have copies of several. If not, check Amazon.

Answer 7

I think the best one is DNA extraction from onions. It's really neat to visualize precipitated DNA on a hook and it brings up several philosophical questions about infinitely large vs. infinitely small in the material world.

Do an internet search for "DNA extraction from onions" and you'll get several hits of different ways of doing it. I think the best rule of thumb is to try it out first to make sure it works before you venture out with a student.

Answer 8

My son and I did the sponge test. We used store brand vs name brand and which one could hold the most water. We did a graph and showed it in measures of ounces. Our study showed that the store brand held 1 once more than the name brand. This was something we did together and had fun at the same time. Not expensive....and he got an A+ for this. Guess enjoy them while they are still interested in us and not girls....:)

Answer 9

livescience.com
fuellesspower.com
howstuffworks.com
kidsastronomy.com
faculty,washington.edu
niehs.nih.gov
these are a few sites you may want to visit for ideas, have fun exploring and learning.
Blessings and an A+ on the science project.

Answer 10

in 8th grade we did an open project about capital punishment
in the from of any art(song,poem.essay,drawing,etc.) we were to exprees our feelings using our ideas
one person did two stories of people who were exacuted on death row(that were later proven innocent) then she folded them to cranes and she did this for ten minutes and she put them on a mobile and it hung up in the classroom all yr if u need other ideas email me [e-mail]