One of the things we’re working on today is our new science project about hair. In the experiment, we’re measuring the strength of hair after it’s been treated with various types of hair products. To do this, we had to find a way to hang strands of hair. The first attempt was to simply tie a knot. That was NOT easy, and after I tried for fifteen minutes, we decided it was too impractical to think that a middle schooler would be able to do it.

So then we thought about tape. First, I used medical tape, because it’s white and you can write on it – important to keep up with the variables. But the medical tape didn’t hold the hair; it just slipped out. Regular cellophane tape wasn’t successful either. I almost gave up, but we finally found a great solution. You’ll have to get the middle school guide to find out!

Experimenting before the science experiment is an important part of our science. We’ll have all the kinks worked out of the hair project (pun intended!) when it is published. Our goal is to take the guesswork out for families, so that they have a step by step list for a cool science project that works!

PS We’re kicking around titles for our science project about hair – “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow”, “Splitting Hairs”, “Hair Conditioning”, and other less catchy attempts. Leave a comment below if you have any ideas.

With today’s increased awareness of how important it is to take care of the environment, it’s great when kids can do a science experiment with results that could change the way their own family takes care of the earth. Our toilet paper experiment (or – as the supermarket calls it – “bathroom tissue”), does just that! A Straight Flush helps kids find out which toilet tissue is the most biodegradable. The results of the experiment may influence what brand of toilet paper that home purchases.

A Straight Flush compares the weight of tissue samples before and after spending time in our ’simulated’ toilet. It requires really accurate scales, which can be expensive. We’re cheap at our house, so we opted to use the scales in the post office. (You could also ask to use the scales at a pharmacy or at a grocery store.) We still laugh at the thought of how it looked for us to traipse into the post office with samples of toilet paper.

Whatever it takes for our kids!

PS Toilet Tissue science projects are just gross enough to be great Middle School Science Projects!

Go here to read more about toilet paper and septic systems.

Most science projects aren’t fast, and if they’re too easy, the teacher won’t accept them. Kids have great ideas, but most of the time they aren’t appropriate. They either won’t work, are too expensive, take months to do, require materials from outer space, or they don’t follow the scientific method. So it’s up to the parent to try and find a science project.

One year one of my boys decided that for his science project, he wanted to test which metal conducted heat the best. The teacher loved the idea. And, frankly, so did I, until we tried to find five samples of different metals. Talk about expensive! We finally found a metallurgist who was able to help us. We developed a testing method that involved wax and our stove. The project worked, but our stove still has wax scars ten years later…

The science projects guides in 24 Hour Science Projects aren’t like that. The project guides were developed from experiments that were easy, were fast, that worked, that didn’t break the bank, and that the teacher liked. Try them out. We promise – all five of the guides really are for fast and easy science projects.