Science Fair Project Ideas...

google the "rubber egg". My son and I did that for a science project and the outcome was pretty cool. The egg shell disappears and just leaves the egg rubbery.

Grow celery in different colored water. Easy. Simple....fun to watch.

Insulators and Conductors. Set up some wire from a battery to a light bulb. make one side complete and the other side "open". She would need to place in different objects to see if they conduct electricity and complete the circuit! If you've never heard of this, I'm sure it sounds complicated, but google it. It's very interesting and fun for kids. It's a hands on experiment and she will learn about something in the process.

Go to your local library. Their kids' nonfiction section will have books full of many great science project ideas and tips. You can use those as is, or adapt them. Find something simple and basic! I can tell you there likely will be lots of kids doing things like "colored water and white flowers, does the water change the flower's color" or "does rock music or classical make grass grow better" (which is almost impossible to gauge anyway). Look for something simple and fun for her, but not something every other kid's going to do.

One thing: Find out if her teacher expects, or at least would like, the project to fit in with whatever science topics she is learning this year in school. If the project is connected to what she's doing this year in science, she will feel the connection and learn more.

Science projects do not have to be horrible nightmares for the parents. If your daughter senses any dread on your part, she will pick up on it and that will color her attitude toward this project, future projects, possibly even science class itself. This can be a fun experience for both of you if you and she keep it simple, and it is a chance to teach her about how to organize her time and materials, make lists (what do you need to do this experiment, let's go buy it together, etc.), and learn the basic process for an experiment .....which is pretty much always the same and standard!

I hope your science fair is not competitive. Where I've seen parent complaints about science projects and fairs seems to be where one of two things is the case -- the teachers are not communicative or clear about what the kids need to be doing, and/or the fairs force competition between students. Our school's science fair is not competitive, thank goodness, though kids are graded individually as an important part of their science class grade -- but the first-second-third graders are not required to participate at our school, either. The point is to learn both science AND the basic organizational skills kids have to have to do well as they move up in grades.

We only did one. We took my daughters baby teeth and put them in differant liquids to see which one would dissolve the teeth faster. We put one in water, one in coca cola, one in milk, and one in orange juice. For the presentation We did the standard posterboard trifold. We glued the teeth next to a "Before" picture and typed a little info about the acidic properties of the liquid they were in. Her findings were typed up and taped to the poster board - I wont tell you which liquid did the most damage - but it's not the one you would suspect! There were a lot of more sophisticated projects. But it was clear the kids didnt do those. I swear some of those kids dads must be engineers!

I got out one of my sons sience books and started flipping thought it...Some things to think about might be Chiming fork, Stable Structures (uncooked spaghetti and marshmellows), Watter power, Hovering Butterfly (Using magnets), Jumping pepper (Static electricty), Mixing oil and vinegar (Also spper yummy salid!!), Foaming Monster, Making butter, Hanging crystals, groring seads on a paper towl, a paper compass, and the old stand by....grow a plant for a chickpea or kidney beans. You can google any of these or you can email me with any that you would like to know more about and I am more than willing to give you more info on how to do these things.
GOOD LUCK!!

My son (3rd grade) had his science fair earlier in the year. He did a project on the effects of soda on teeth. We got four teeth from a local meat processor (elk teeth). Took before pictures & weights, then soaked them for a week in different types of soda and compared the before & after pictures and weights. His hypothesis is that the regular soda would erode the teeth more than diet soda; but our results didn't support it. The actual results were really cool, the teeth in colored sodas turned black, it was gross - the teachers loved it.

Another idea we had was to make several batches of chocolate chip cookies replacing the sugar with different types of sweeteners (splenda, all brown sugar, agave syrup, etc etc) and see what effect it had on the cookies - bake time, appearance, texture, flavor. We'll probably do this one with my 1st grader when she's in 3rd grade since she loves to bake.

When we were doing these projects, I googled different sites and got info for grade level projects.

It's been so long ago, i don't recall the sites. Also, the library has some good idea books with age appropriate ideas.

Good luck!!

Try to make it something fun for your daughter, and you will both enjoy it more. And keep it simple. One year, my son's project was "Which paper makes the paper airplane fly the farthest?" He folded different types of paper (computer, construction, cardstock, newspaper...) into the same kind of paper airplane and threw them, measured the distance and there you go, finished!

Google 1st grade science fair projects and you should find tons of ideas that won't be very time consuming for you.

I feel for you. I hated the science projuects time of year, and do not miss that we're past that. But eventually I learned it doesn't have to be awful. I learned that the more simple projects that looked more clearly like they were done by the student got better grades.

Your 1st grader won't be up against 5th graders. Each grade is evaluated separately - sigh of relief. ;o)

The purpose of the science projuects is to teach kids "the scientific method" and see if they "get it". "The Scientific Method" is to come up with a hypothesis (an idea to test), test it, measure it and find out if your hyposthesis is true or not.

The ones I recall from 1st grade that did well are these:
"who yells louder -boys or girls? I think boys do" (you need something that measure decibles and you need to "borrow" the kids in childs class and maybe the classroom next door - the teachers are generally glad to help)
"which soda sprays more when shaken, brand name, store brand, diet, regular? - I think brand name will spray out more" (you need a few bottles of soda, an area to shake and allow to overrun the bottle, and a pticher or container with measuring lines).
"which detergent works best? I think Tide will work best" (identically stained clothing, and a few different brands of detergent, including store brand)
"how many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop" (obviously, lots of tootsie pops and lots of counting - you can do this by age or gender as well)

Taking photos of the process, the measurement (if possible), and charts of the results are all things they look for.

I hope this helps. Science project don't require that you make crystals or build fantastic creations - it's all about testing your ideas. When my son was 9 he did really well on his and he laid it out, cut the photos himself, made the chart, etc. It looked like a 9 yr old made it - but I think the teachers would rather have that - than one that looks like the graphics dept at mom's office did it. ;o)

Good luck!

Find something simple that she can do almost entirely on her own, is interested in, and then supervise for safety. My first grader made candles, one without using an ice bath and one with. His presentation was a piece of paper in his own hand writing that explained (mispelled words and all) that the ice water candle was bigger and why. Then close your eyes when you see that another first grader has built a solar panel and written a 5 page report on global warming and the environment.
Doing it this way makes it fun for your daughter and a lot less stressful for you.

When my kids were in kindergarden-their science teacher sent away fro owl pellets-they are the remains that are regurgitated after the owl has eaten a rodent. These get soaked in hot water-then the kids took out the bones and reconstrusted the skeletal remains on a piece of paper-labeling the bones and identifying the animal-it was incredible:
http://www.discountowlpellets.com/productinfo.php

You can get some worms and see how they help plants grow....3 sprouts with worms in dirt and 3 sprouts without worms in the dirt

I wish our school did science projects. I used to work for a state and regional science fair...it was so much fun.

Good luck!

Other ideas - Do worms like light?

I suggest worms because it would be easy for a 7 year old to do. Plus they get to get a little dirty.

Last year, when my son was in 2nd grade, we grew stalactites and stalagmites with salt. He liked it -- it was fun and not too much work. Basically, you tie washers on each end of a piece of cotton string and run it between two glasses with salt water on a plate and let it sit for a week or so. There are also other mixtures that make stalagmites/stalactites that you can find on the web. Good luck!

My son's science project was "Do heavier items fall faster than light items". Real Easy. He just dropped about 10 different items out the 3rd story window and I timed how long they took to hit the ground and he repeated it 3 times. He wrote his hypothesis and then the drop test and graphed his conclusions. Real easy and best of all he did it himself. Science projects don't have to be hard, it is just testing a theory and make the question something they would ask. Just take a silly question they ask you and ask them to test it. Its all fair game. Good luck.