Project Name/Description

Comments

Recommended?

Volunteer

Dissecting a Frog

Kids found it very interesting; need to take in supplementary material (research) to make it last longer

yes

John Robinson and Dan Blech

Solar Car
Build a Car from a Kit

yes

Philp Taff

Rocket Car
Propelled by Acid-Base reaction

yes

Jean Lopez

Dissections
of a dogfish, shark, frog, various sea animals

very educational, good for explaining

yes

Elissa

Balloon-Powered Vehicles
Balloons, Kleenex, Tons of Fon!

Awesome

yes

Alex Richardson

Fetal Pig Dissection

only lasted two days, need extension of some sort

yes

Elissa and Claire

Airplane Design
We investigated parachutes (surface area = slower), Bernoulli's principle and the concept of life

This is a bit of a grab bag of an experiment. Make sure there is a theme.

yes

John Robinson

Rocket Car
Baking soda and vinegar chemical rxn => rocket car goes

This is a good project if the volunteer knows what to do

yes

Jim Yang

Planets and Solar Systems
A model of the planels and some of the moons

Definitely good b/c you can work on it a little a day until the end at your own pace

yes

Jordan Ellis

Pop or Not?
Heat transfer with water and balloons

be careful with matches

yes

Erik Lockhard and Philip Taff

Volcano

if you want an easy one (N.B. hard to make scientific -- must find variable)

yes

Slimey Chemistry

If you keep it organized

yes

Plant Growth
testing the relative success of plant growth rates in different liquids: orange juice, coke, oil

it's a fairly standard science project, but it definitely works. One thing--there isn't so much to do but watch the plants grow. Also, one problem is making sure no one messes w/the plants during the week. See if you can arrange w/teachers to keep them in a safe location.

yes

Lance Ching

Crystal Growth
growing crystals

not the most scientific, but interesting nonetheless. The kid really enjoyed it

yes

Jaime Le

Crystal Growing (space age crystal kit)
growing crystals

Successful because they grew some neat crystals, but it involved finding a hot pot and carefully following instructions, which brought some trouble.

yes

Nana Akua Asafu-Agyei

Fetal Pig Dissection
Dissecting a fetal pig with handbook guide.

Successful because the student learned a lot about anatomy and dissection.

yes

Jeanine Mohammed

Frog, Fetal Pig, Shark Dissections

It was a pretty straight forward project. Dissections are always interesting, and it's not a very difficult thing to do. You get to see a lot of the animals anatomy. However, be warned that any dissection is smelly.

yes

Neil Mascarenhas

Rocket Power
baking soda-powered rocket kit

Awesome project, we got the kit really late, if we had it earlier we could have performed more experiments with it

yes

Frank Attenello

Bottle rocket
using two liter bottle, water, and bicycle pump to make rocket

Excellent project that attracts a lot of attention from other kids in the playground area. At Troup, we already have the equipment… all you need is 2-liter soda bottles

yes

Andrew Hung

Water Bottle Rocket
Soda bottles of different volumes and contents were launched at various pressure using air pump. Distance traveled was recorded and compared.

A very exciting project if the weather is nice, since this activity must be done outside. The project may be dangerous, so only serious volunteers and kids should attempt to do this project.

yes

Ryan Barrows

Kitchen Table Chemistry
Assorted experiments in a premade kit

Experiments aren't hard, hard to incorporate scientific method though

yes

Swati Salgocar

Magnetism
Kit from Nasco w/various experiments

Premade kit makes experiments easy, may be hard to explain theory to kids

yes

Mike Berkeley

Hyper Peppy Robot

Worked, well, the kid really liked it. Found it does not respond to noise and touch as advertised, rather responds to noise of touch.

yes

Robert Wong

Hyper Peppy Robot

it works well and the kids love it, especially since they can take it home

yes

Hai Ngu

Egg Drop

Works really well when volunteer and student are creative. This was done as a rush project when previously ordered things did not work. You can have a lot of fun with this one.

yes

Brad Shy

Egg Drop
Dropping eggs in different apparati from various heights.

Successful because it was an excellent way to learn the scientific method through looking at methods of trial and error. Also, inexpensive and fun

yes

Mary Laura Lind

Physics Forces

Worked well with this particular student. Ordered bunch of materials to create various vehicles. Might not work for hyper, and not so curious students. Need good volunteer.

50/50

Sohil Patel

Potato Clock

Was a neat way to see that electricity could be conducted using alternate power sources- downside, everything worked, but kids understood why some stuff should, and others should not.

50/50

Michelle Brady, Smaranda Luca

Ant Farm
observing ants in an ant farm

This project was really interesting because it was an excellent way of learning about community building and live animals are always popular with the kids. It was really sad when our ants started dying though.

yes

Stephanie Jones, Victoria Lin

Lemon Battery
Using lemon and potato to make a battery.

Failed because the volunteer and student did not spend enough time with the project. Also, the volunteer needed more information about how to make the project work as he didn't order this project from a kit with instructions.

yes

Bill Thompson

Show me the light
Compared and learned about electrical circuits: parallel, series/ open, closed

Great project, especially for a day coordinator. It’s easy, interesting, and fun. The instructions are very useful too because they outline the procedure and give great background information.

yes

Crystal Astrachan

Amazing Bridges (kit)

Tough but a good kit.

yes

Andy Beck

Building bridges
building bridges from popsicle sticks

Interesting and hands-on

yes

Mary Laura Lind

Venus Fly Traps

Worked if the plants are kept well.

yes

Theodore Cohen

Perfume
Testing different brands of perfume and their effect on people's moods and feelings

very easy, but not much science. Good for learnng the scientific method

yes

Kanika Chander

Making Paper
Kit that takes things like cookie paper box and makes them into paper

Fun and easy.

yes

Kate Raisler and Jane Bernstein

Testing Tap Water
Kit for water quality

Easy to do and scientific. Plus it tells you how clean the school drinking fountain is.

yes

Crystal Astrachan

Testing Tap Water
Kit for water quality

"great project. very easy and applicable and scientific."

yes

Nancy Levy

Measuring the Density of Rocks
Kit that instructs how to find weight and volume of rocks to derive density

Not very exciting but it depends on the kid. We have an electronic balance for those at Troup who may be interested in adding a twist to this kit. We already have the rocks too!!

yes

Stefana Constantinescu

Paper Airplane design and testing (from book)
Making paper airplanes from book instructions

This project was based on just one book. It's great because all you need is the book (which is still in the closet) and some plain 8.5x11 paper. Lots of designs to make, good as a comparative kind of project.

yes

Benjamin Jarvis

Solar Powered Cars and Light Energy
We tried using different color light sources and different intensities to find top speed etc.

With the right activities, this can be a good project.

yes

Anne Akin

Air Pressure, Force, and Momentum: physics investigations (KIT)
Little physics experiments from kit

This is a pretty fun physics project that is certainly instructive. However, it features a number of different activities that don't quite hold together as a project. Still worthwhile I would say (the kit will last forever too as long as we don't lose any parts).

yes

Miriam Goldberg

Structures and Materials: which materials are best for buildling?
Little physics experiments from kit

This is a pretty fun physics project that is certainly instructive. However, it features a number of different activities that don't quite hold together as a project. Still worthwhile I would say (the kit will last forever too as long as we don't lose any parts).

yes

Miriam Goldberg

Taste Test
Where you taste things on your tongue

Very good and you can buy everything @ shaws. Kids love doing it.

yes

Sara Thierman

Lipstick Test
Which lipstick is better?

Good & very simple. Easy to enforce scientific method

yes

Huiwon Choi

Designing a webpage

Good if volunteer knows how to do it. Need to figure out how to get web access

yes

Jim Schroder

Electro Lab
kit

Doable little projects

yes

Anne Akin

Telegraph
kit

Works fine

yes

Henry Lien

Blood Testing
The group used a blood testing kit to test different synethetic blood samples for A or B proteins and also for Rh factor.

It was one of the cooler and more "scientific" projects on my day. They also had an interesting Aids test. I would definitely recommend the project for an older student who has a decent science background.

yes

Daniel Goff

Melting Candy
The group melted different types of candy including gummy bears and chocolate, and timed how long it took for them to melt. They tasted the candy after it had melted and tried to draw some general conclusions as to what caused some candy to take longer to melt and what caused the foul tastes for some after melting.

yes

Carl Hungerford

Making tornadoes
Kit + two 2-liter bottles connected to make tornado effect

lots of fun. very easy. and homemade

yes

Alexis Rieger