Have you been wondering what to do with all the spare time on your hands recently? After the summer holidays begin most students claim to get bored as there is nothing to do at home. I disagree. In fact I feel there’s a lot of productive things that you can do sitting at home. Yes even in the holidays when there is no real work possible.

You can plan ahead for next year’s science fair project. Get the correct idea that you want to prove or disprove. Work out what you need to write in the science project report. Check out how you want to decorate the display board. Even make a working prototype of the model that you wish to construct.  See there’s so much you can do right now.

All this work now will save you a lot of time later on. Then at the last minute you will not be running around in a panic like a headless chicken. All the background work would already be in place and all you will need to do is implement it. If this sounds like too much work in the heat then think about it this way. You will have to do it later on in any case.

Plus at that time you will also have other things to worry about such as classes, friends, sports, and home work. So does it not make sense to be a bit proactive and finish off part of the work now? If you are looking to just have some fun try out this expeiment here. I am sure you will enjoy it as it is not work.

Its has always been fun to watch lasers in action. Remember the Jedis in Star Wars?Well lasers are actually nothing more than “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation”. Pick the first letter in that phrase from all the words and you get LASER.

A Laser is a beam of light which has many uses. Not the least of which is being helpful in non invasive surgery. Here the patient does not need to go under the conventional surgery using a scalpel, but a beam of light in laser form is used instead. Usually stones are operated using the laser method.

What you see coming towards you is a thin beam of light traveling in a line. This concentrated light can be used to do some fun science experiments. If you choose to use this thin beam of light through fluid you will see how it gets distorted. It is rather like passing sunlight through a prism and looking at the refractive index.

You can even use different lasers and see how the reflected light varies in each case. Get some different colored lasers and see which one bends the most. Or the least, either way you look at it. Record your findings in a journal. You can even expand this into a full fledged science fair project.

There are lots of fun things that you can do with lazers at home. Check out this article for more ideas. If you have some new ones of your own, feel free to share them with me.

After all the excitement of getting a great idea for your science fair project and making it is over, you suddenly feel lost. All the urgency of getting the model to work is over. In most cases it would be working just fine by the time the day of the science fair arrives. Then suddenly this project has no meaning.

At least that is how you feel when you walk out of the fair location. As you carry your project home, you wonder what you will do with it now. Most likely you will put it into some corner of the room and forget about it. Or if its too large, it will get stored in the garage and never see the light of day again.

Here’s what you can do to ensure that the project stays in use. When you decide to make a working model pick an idea that is useful inreal life. For instance how about making a radio? Not only will you have fun making a working model, you will continue to use it to listen to songs and news on the radio.

Or pick up a project which will help some one around you. For instance pick out a small gadget that can make life easier for a friend. Maybe a key finder which helps them trace that bunch of keys that they are always losing. It would work to comb the beach for treasure as well.

Such a project will stay in use long after the fair is over. Prepare for the fair with these points here and have fun with it long after the science  fair is finished.

In the true spirit of scientific exploration you will do a number of experiments before you get to the ideal idea for your project. The trouble is that each experiment that you do will need some material specific to it. This material may be expensive at times. And your parents might not be willing to spend too much on these experiments.

The trick to cutting costs on your science fair projects is to keep all the  old ones with you. That way when you decide on making some thing in particular you will find that part of the required material is already available with you. There will be no need for you to get everything together from scratch.

This will help you as you will reuse the material of old projects and save some money in the bargain. Many LEDs and some circuits and almost all the wiring can be reused in a new project. This is a great way to practice recycling as well. By reusing the material you are ensuring that the old projects come in handy.

Your parents will also appreciate the fact that you are economizing. It will also save you time as you will have so much ready material at hand. There will be no need to wait till you shop for new material to begin your science fair project.

By the time you get to high school the magic of science has begun to fade. The gadgets that fascinated you as a child have become matter of fact. The excitement over how things work has dulled. Other things matter more than generating science fair ideas.

Our schooling system is partly to blame for this apathy. There is little scope for you as students to expand your knowledge and understanding of science. Plus no one wants to seek these answers and be considered a geek in high school.

It does not matter that the geek is far more likely to succeed in life. This is because he is focused on his passion. In high school it’s the sports heroes who rule not the science fair award winners.

So the trick to being popular in high school is to participate in many and varied activities. Try out for sports teams, appear for quizzes, become a reporter for the school newspaper, and then put up a smashing entry for the science fair.

Science experiments which are interactive in nature are less likely to be considered geeky so consider such science fair ideas. In fact a working model may even be considered cool. So if you are a closet geek in high school, don’t give up on your passion for science. Just camouflage it and you will be just fine.

The scope of science is so vast that picking up ideas for science fair projects should seem really simple. Unfortunately not everyone is too creative at coming up with new ideas for the science fair. Why else would we be seeing the baking soda volcano, the solar system model, the litmus paper test and the conductivity tester every year?

It is true that it is much simpler to do what has been done before. Yet it is also true that these repetitive projects are not the ones that win the awards. What wins the award is something new and innovative. Where the involvement of the student is clearly seen by the judges of the competition.

By the time you reach high school you are expected to have a sound science background for the basic principles. You are supposed to know that acids are corrosive. That beyond the seven visible colors of the rainbow you have X-rays and gamma rays at one end of the spectrum and radio waves and microwaves at the other end.

You know about sound being measured in decibels. About the temperatures measured in Celsius and also in Fahrenheit. Now that you know all these things, you are expected to base your science fair projects on some such principle. Preferably with a working model which proves your hypothesis. Only then will you end up with an award winning project.

After years of enjoying the science fair and coming up with new ideas for science projects you might feel that your enthusiasm is no longer what it used to be. This is natural in high school as there are so many more interesting things happening on campus. The ideal science project is about as far from you as mars.

The truth is that by the time you get to high school there are way too many distractions. There is sports, and contests, and quizzes, and the opposite sex besides studies all vying for your attention. So in all this commotion, who has time for designing a science project?

While you might not be too keen on completing this task, it is still part of your academic activities. So you need to get a bit more enthusiastic about the science fair and complete a winning project.

Think of ways to make it more interesting. If you want to take on a partner of the opposite sex to help you get more enthusiastic about the project, do it. Spending time with your partner on the project will be legitimate and you will actually get some school work done as well.

If you want just pick your best friend as your partner. Whatever ideas you come up with will be all the more fun to work out in practice. Just make sure that you don’t lose your enthusiasm for your science project midway.

There are many ways to go about writing a good report. What system may work for another person may not work for you. Yet there are a few basic steps that you will follow no matter how you write your report.

Step one will involve making the science projects. Till you have a project you cannot write a report about it. So deciding what to work on and making the project is the logical beginning.

Step two will be collecting the data that you want to add to the report. The scientific principles and theory that you are making use of in your science projects must be reflected here. If the project is based on principles of aerodynamic you will want to project some of the details.

Step three is to organize the data that you have in a logical sequence. Get the serial order right as you represent your facts. Make sure you cover all the relevant points in the report.

Step four is purely cosmetic. This consists of prettying up the report. You get the right font, best pictures and ideal page layout done here.

That’s how simple writing your report on science projects can be. Just follow these basic steps and you’ll be done in no time.

Getting your project ready for the science fair is usually fun. This is because you are having a good time experimenting with what works and what does not. At the same time most students don’t want to write the science fair report. This is because they find it boring.

Any task you under take can become interesting. Yes, even if it is a dull task like writing a report. The key to making it fun is to be well prepared. Do you go out skating without wearing your helmet and knee pads? No, that would be foolish.

In the same way, you need to be prepared when you sit down to write your science fair report. Get your writing material in order. Place all the reference books you will need in front of you. Think up of an orderly process in which you must proceed.

Half the time when you have collected your thoughts you will find that the report just flows from you. If the project is about Rocket Science you need to get the theory in. Then the exact process you followed to get your working model.

Add a few illustrations. The internet is a great resource for pictures to download. And suddenly you will find that your report has written itself.

While there are a large number of options to choose from for your science fair project, you need to ensure that you make the right choice. It is okay to be confused about this for a while. There is so much data available these days. On the internet itself you will have hundreds of sites booming with ideas. To filter down to a single one can take some time. Here’s a simple method that you can try out.

It is natural that you have some vague idea about the field of science you want to use. Next try and figure out what you would like the project to do. If you want to make a working model get the theory and read up on it. Is it something that you will be comfortable handling? If it is, you have to see how practical it will be to construct.

There is no point in making a huge model that takes up half the room. It can’t be shipped out to school for the science fair with ease. Plus the larger it is the more the chances of something breaking off and making it useless. Ideally the project size should be something that you can personally carry in your arms. If it has to be larger try and make it into two pieces that you can assemble together.

Don’t forget about the display board and the report. Make sure that you finish it well in advance of the date of the science fair. Also try and get part of the project to school the previous day so that you don’t have too much to do on the final day. And whatever else you do make sure that you have fun.